


Crash Course

by MagpieMinx (CardinalFox)



Series: ...Then Still I Would Love You. [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Age Difference, Boss/Employee Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Overly Polite Flirting, POV Second Person, Pre-TFA, Reader-Insert, Sass, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, Snark, Unreliable Narrator, brief description of gore, mentions of molestation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-05-22 18:54:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6090745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CardinalFox/pseuds/MagpieMinx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You're always learning something from or about General Hux.  Always.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which General Hux Is Not A Cannibal

Becoming General Hux’s aide was, unsurprisingly, a crash course in administrative duties.  It was also, surprisingly, a crash course in applied systems theory.  The Imperial Academy’s lectures on the subject had left you woefully unprepared and the learning curve was steep, but General Hux was a good instructor in spite of his general (no pun intended) lack of patience with incompetence.  At the very least, he hadn’t been harsh with you during the two week trial period.  In fact, not only did he seem to generally (still no pun intended) approve of your work, but you had the impression that he was sort of generally (okay, maybe pun intended) relieved to have you around.  This didn’t quite make sense to you, but you could have easily been mistaken, so you shrugged and carried on.

He tended to work long hours, and from day one you had stuck with him as long as he continued working.  You weren’t sure if he appreciated the company, but he certainly appreciated the assistance, and the extra hours had the added benefit of preventing you from getting homesick.  They also gave you ample opportunity to continue learning from (and about) your new boss, and General Hux seemed slightly more relaxed when it was technically after hours.  It wasn’t difficult to see why: he got nearly as much work done during those two or three hours as he did during the rest of the day.  He also, you had a strong suspicion, enjoyed the relative silence of those hours in comparison to the constant interruptions of the day.

He was an exacting master, but you were eager to please.  In short: you worked well together, the rumors and gossip of the rest of the base be damned.

“How do you do that?” he asks, breaking the delicate balance you’re holding between writing the official missive he wants to go out first thing tomorrow morning and your reflections about how you’ve come to this place, this office, and in the service of the most terrifyingly competent man you think you’ve ever met in your life.  You let go of your reflections and flick the message from your desk’s screen to his for approval as you look up to see him watching you with the kind of cool curiosity that’s characteristic when he observes you.

“Do what, sir?” you inquire, feeling more comfortable under his scrutiny than you probably should.  You’ve seen people turn white, stuttering and stumbling over their words under his deathly stares, though you suppose he’s never given you quite the same kind of stare.  He tends to look at you with an assessing, evaluative expression, as if he’s trying to decide how many and what kind of tasks to settle on your shoulders next.  It’s been a lot of work, but you perform well under stress, always have, and he hasn’t dropped anything into your lap that you haven’t been able to handle.  In other words, he is by far the best commanding officer you could have asked for after leaving the Academy.

“Smile like that,” he says briefly, and it takes effort to maintain your composure rather than gawk at him because that sounds an awful lot like a personal question and General Hux doesn’t ask people personal questions anymore than he volunteers personal information.  At least you can make sense of the clarification, and you know exactly what he’s referring to.  Your tendency to always smile is something that was highly frowned upon at the Imperial Academy.  Officers-to-be are encouraged to cultivate a stoicism that insults your vanity.  The straight-faced expression that General Hux has made into an art would distort your chin and possibly make you look sleepy in the bargain.  You would have, are having, and will have none of this nonsense.  You may not be the prettiest woman you know, but neither are you the ugliest, and you will be damned to whatever hells might exist before you will purposely make yourself any less attractive.  As said previously: vanity.

“I’m not entirely sure, sir,” you say after a pause in which you consider telling him that you’ve heard that there are four muscles in a human face that are utilized for smiling, but that’s hearsay and you’re not sure if he would find that helpful.  You congratulate yourself mentally for resisting this bit of sass before continuing.  “I’ve always been someone who smiles frequently.”

“I’m sure your instructors at the Academy found it less than ideal,” he intones wryly, the corner of his mouth twitching upward a fraction in amusement.  It’s smug, but it’s amusement and for some reason you’re a little thrilled that he’s entertained by the idea of your teachers trying to stamp out your smile.  The smile you weren’t aware you were wearing until now has also gone a bit smug, you can tell by the tightness of your cheeks.  You may have even crossed the line into smirking, but the satisfaction of having gotten a smile out of your superior through no other means than your own perpetually smiling face is gratifying in the extreme.

“I hear that picture day this coming year is supposed to be slightly less of a production,” you respond with a gleeful little lilt, and General Hux apparently can’t help himself because he actually chuckles.  You can count on one hand the number of times you’ve heard him laugh in the two months you’ve been working for him and are understandably proud of this accomplishment.  Either you will sleep very well tonight or you won’t sleep at all, and you’re leaning toward the latter given the sudden rush of energy, but you’ll have to see.

“What a waste of effort,” he remarks, and though he’s still wearing that almost-smile, his eyes have gone cool again, calculating as he watches your face, “They should have taught you to use it.”  You take a moment to weigh your options, and then try for what is probably the most obvious one: you give him your purest, most innocent smile, the one that an ex-boyfriend swore made you look like an angel, a comment that had you laughing on the floor for a good fifteen minutes.

“Most people do tend to find me a little disarming, sir,” you say demurely from beneath lowered lashes in a show of modesty that is half sincere and half not.  You wonder if you’ve made a mistake when General Hux’s little expression of amusement vanishes as he re-evaluates you to what you’re fairly certain is a much higher standard than he’s used previously.  Given how high his expectations are already, you don’t expect to pass this time, but you hold onto your faux-innocence bravely.  It’s not as difficult as you thought it would be, and then the tension eases a little as General Hux settles back into his chair looking thoughtful.

“I would very much imagine that they do,” he says neutrally, and it’s the closest you’ve ever heard him come to being impressed.  Your cheeks heat with the pleasure of the almost-compliment, but it’s difficult to tell if you’re visibly blushing or not.  You don’t dwell on it too much as you dip your head deferentially and unlock your desk’s screen again because it’s gone dark during this conversation.  It registers your fingerprints and lights up, displaying three reports you need to summarize and several requests.  Two of them are for meetings, the rest are supply requisitions that need to be approved.  You open up General Hux’s schedule, because while ostensibly you’re allowed to approve supply requisitions yourself, you prefer to simply make your recommendations in a note attached to a bundle of them and then pass them to General Hux to look over.  Having him look them over is vastly preferable to potentially getting on your boss’s bad side for something you could have easily avoided in the first place.  Doing this still requires that you read through these requisitions and cross-reference previous requests, and that will take time.  Best to accomplish the shorter task first.

“Your ability to smile is refreshing,” he says, and this is not just breaking through your thought processes, this is snapping them in half like a poorly made stylus and it is even harder not to stare at General Hux this time than it was before, “I get tired of every junior officer looking like I’m going to eat them for breakfast.”  He rolls his eyes toward the ceiling as if in supplication to a god that neither of you believes in, mild exasperation rolling off him in waves.

“You don’t eat breakfast, sir, you drink three cups of tea, no milk or sugar,” you say flatly before you can stop yourself, but you would know because you’re the one who fetches him that tea alongside your customary cups of coffee replete with milk, sugar, and a shot of flavoring syrup from the flask you carry in your pocket.  You suspect that it says something about you that of the luxuries you’ve given up by coming to Starkiller Base, the one you haven’t been willing to give up is flavored syrup for your coffee.  You ignore this reflection in favor of trying to figure out whether or not General Hux has taken your comment for insubordination.  His eyebrows have lifted ever so slightly, so you decide, rather recklessly in your opinion, to take a chance.  You pause for a moment to feign contemplation and then add, “Perhaps that’s why?”

He snorts.  And then he guffaws.  And while you’re wondering why the fuck you made a joke about him being a cannibal, he breaks into uproarious laughter in the privacy of your shared office where you’re the only one who can see that he is entirely, completely human.

You find out, by virtue of the grin you’re sporting, that you like this very much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There it is, first chapter. As always, kudos and comments are much appreciated!


	2. In Which General Hux Has What Is Called In Parlance ‘A Day’.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which you meet the much talked about Kylo Ren for the first time.

General Hux has three moods: Indifferent, Irritated, and Irate.

You are somehow impervious to all of these i-Moods, likely because they’re never actually directed at you.  You have very little to fear when he verbally eviscerates someone because your job is to take notes and assign someone else to sweep up the entrails.  You are much better at this particular task than anyone would have expected, and your peers begin to resent you for it.  Given that General Hux’s satisfaction with your performance remains steady, you are not all that concerned by what anyone else thinks.

Today, your superior’s mood falls definitively into the ‘Irritated’ category, possibly with qualifiers of ‘anticipation’ and ‘anxiety’.  The latter of these two is the one that concerns you because General Hux has never shown any inclination towards anxiety and you didn’t expect that he would start now.  Lo and behold, you can feel the tension radiating off him as the two of you wait for the shuttle carrying Kylo Ren to land.

Until now, you’ve only heard of Kylo Ren, and most of what you have heard has been so sensationalized that you don’t trust it.  The thought of anyone sweeping around in billowing black robes, terrifying the general population of Starkiller base, destroying equipment, and fighting with General Hux is too ridiculous to believe.  Stories have a tendency to take on a life of their own, tend to grow bigger over time, and while you sense that the fear is real, you find it a little overblown.  Kylo Ren, whatever he is, is not some kind of boogey monster descending on Starkiller Base to make it into everyone’s personal hell.  He’s flesh and blood like everyone else, Force-sensitive or not.

Which is why it makes you uneasy to see General Hux visibly unsettled by the arrival of the Knight Lord when not a single other person has ever unsettled him.

“I suggest you find something trivial and repetitive to occupy your thoughts for the time being, Lieutenant,” General Hux says, sounding as if he has only just restrained himself from spitting this between his teeth, “Lest  _ Lord Ren _ find something there that displeases him.”  You are caught up at once between two trains of thought.  The first is absolute disbelief that apparently you are going to be calling the not-boogeyman ‘Lord Ren’.  You don’t know whether to laugh at that or not.  The second is an observation that General Hux is too agitated to prevent himself from venting some of his feeling on you, and though it stings a little, mostly what you feel is a wave of compassion for your commanding officer.  Sensationalized or not, Kylo Ren stresses General Hux out.

“I’m sure everything will be fine, sir,” you tell him with the quiet confidence of a faith you don’t quite feel, and when he turns to look at you with tight eyes and a thin-pressed mouth beneath his command cap, you offer him your most reassuring smile.  Amazingly, this gesture has no small effect on the red-headed General, and you can  _ feel _ his agitation lessen as if he at least wants to believe you.

“Let us hope your optimism is rewarded,” he responds, the words clipped as he turns away, but he’s more settled than he was before, and you tuck your astonishment away to examine later when you have the time to do so.  It seems impossible that you could have a calming effect on General Hux the way you have frequently had on your classmates, particularly since General Hux seems as impervious to your moods as you seem to be to his.  Yet, here you are, and here he is, and you suddenly have a sneaking suspicion that this is exactly why he handpicked you straight out of the Imperial Academy.  You slot the memory of your brief interview with him before you came to Starkiller next to your surprise for further examination as the shuttle touches down.

You’re actually not disappointed, and the stories seem somewhat less sensationalized upon seeing Kylo Ren in person.  He is tall and imperious, and he sweeps down to the ground, his cloak billowing in his wake.  He is certainly not the terrifying creature he’s been made out to be, but neither does he give the impression of being just a man because he’s wearing a helmet and this renders his face machinelike and inhuman.  All that’s left for you is to see a demonstration of the Force and his temper (and for greatest efficiency, both at once) and you can complete your mental dossier on the man.

He is, you remind yourself, a man underneath that.  He is still human shaped and human sized despite all the extra mass the helmet and the cloak seem to give him, even if he and General Hux are about the same height.

“General Hux,” he greets your boss, and you weren’t sure what to expect, but you’re thrown by how completely flat his voice is rendered by the modulator installed in his helmet.  Inflection and tone are completely lost in the translation, and failed by vocal cues, you turn your attention to his body language.

“Lord Ren,” General Hux responds as you read the tension in Kylo Ren.  You’re not quite as good at this as you likely should be, you’re too dependent on vocal inflection and facial expression, but the tension in the Knight Lord’s shoulders is obvious under the cloak and his hands are fisted at his sides.  You suspect that he wasn’t looking forward to this meeting anymore than General Hux was.  It’s a bit off considering they’re supposed to be working together as colleagues, or at least that’s the impression you had.  Then again, the reality of a situation is often quite different, and the rising pressure as the two men stare each other down is charged with competition and territorial aggression.  It is suddenly as clear as day to you that they both claim Starkiller as their own, unwilling to share the command post for reasons that you’re sure will become clearer to you later.  Presently, all you feel is an urge to keep them from attempting to kill each other.

You are fairly certain that if they get to the point of acting on the impulses you sense running between them like electric charges, you’ll probably lose your life trying to get between them.  You decide that this would be less than ideal, and then the helmet turns ever so slightly in your direction.

“You have a shadow, General Hux,” Kylo Ren intones, his voice still rendered ridiculously flat by the modulator.

“My aide,” General Hux answers, his voice cold and tight and giving away nothing.

“Lord Ren,” you murmur politely in greeting, bowing slightly in a gesture of deference because it can’t hurt to show respect.  Kylo Ren may not value respect the way General Hux does, but you doubt that he wouldn’t appreciate it.  You find yourself wondering as you straighten whether the respect is for show or if you genuinely feel it, it might actually be a little bit of both.  A couple of minutes in a person’s presence can tell you a lot, but it can’t tell you enough.  Still, it’s better to at least try to start off from a better place rather than from a worse one.

You feel something skim over the surface your mind, a sensation more akin to a cold hand stroking your bare skin than anything else.  You shudder involuntarily, and then feel a bit of dread when you catch up on what likely just happened.  You weren’t overly excited by the idea of someone being able to read your thoughts, or listen, or whatever verb it is that is appropriate, but the actual feeling of it is intrusive and disturbs your sense of privacy regarding the contents of your head.  You want to shy away, but General Hux wouldn’t approve, so you shift your weight and square your shoulders and school your face into guileless neutrality even as you feel Kylo Ren touch your thoughts again.  The second time is no less disconcerting than the first you find.

“If you please, Lord Ren, that’s very uncomfortable,” you tell him with your customary amiability, and every person within earshot seems to collectively hold their breath.  You get the very strong impression that no one has ever asked Kylo Ren to stop doing something without there being undesirable consequences as a result.  It takes effort, but you swallow down the fear clawing at the back of your throat and maintain your neutral expression.

“I do not care about your comfort,” he growls, the modulator rending the rough sound smoother than it really is, and you’re surprised that you were able to distinguish this before that cold touch grips your psyche and squeezes, rifling through the proverbial pages of your being without any concern as to the effects of this on you.  There’s malevolent intention behind this cruelty, it looms large in your mind as it crushes instinctively raised defenses like paper.

You hear General Hux snarl something at Kylo Ren, but the sound seems very distant as books are torn off shelves and sheet music is scattered over the floor.  There’s blood in your mouth and your parents and instructors from the Academy shouting at you, and you try to shake yourself free of the Knight's metaphysical grip.  When this fails, you set your teeth and endure it.

Papers shuffle, doors slam shut, glass breaks, and then you’re wrapping your hands, carefully winding gauze around your fingers, the promise of violence sitting heavy and righteous in your stomach.  Milk swirls in beautiful clouds in a cup of coffee, sunlight streams through a window, spices searing your tastebuds in the best way possible, a knuckle slides over your cheek, lips pressing against the outer curve of your ear.  Snow burns your hands, explodes in a puff of powder against your shoulder, showering you with glittering sand that blows away in the wind, and then there’s only the quiet sound of General Hux’s breathing and your own in his tastefully decorated office, the amber displays in your desks shining off his eyes and yours as you work in silence.

You’re released suddenly and without warning, and by some miracle you’re still standing and not crying.  There’s blood leaking down your upper lip and you feel lightheaded, but you’re alive which is somehow more than you expected after this ordeal.  You pull in a deep breath, hold it, and then exhale slowly.

“Lieutenant?” General Hux demands, suddenly appearing in your field of vision, bending to get in your face.  His eyes are tight again, his lips half curled into a snarl you don’t think is meant for you.  You blink stupidly at him for a moment before you reach up to pinch your nose to stop the flow of blood dripping over your mouth, down your chin, and onto your uniform.  Recovering your wits is an easier task than it would seem, but you're shaken after being shuffled like a deck of cards.  You glance at Kylo Ren’s back as he strides away, feel fear make your stomach pitch and buck even at the sight of him leaving you behind, apparently forgotten.

“Yes, sir?” you say, and you don’t sound entirely like yourself.  You may be quiet, but you're not that soft spoken, and the difference is disconcerting.  You grind your teeth, mentally telling yourself to get your shit together.

“Go directly to the medical center for evaluation,” General Hux commands, his voice sharp, “I'm relieving you of your duties for the day.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There we are, chapter 2 up and posted.
> 
> So it looks like the schedule will be weekly posting on Mondays. Hopefully. If I need to slow down, it might be once every two weeks, but I think we can get through the month of March at least.
> 
> It'd be much appreciated if you could leave me a comment! I encourage you to just copy and paste your favorite bit, no commentary necessary if you don't want to bother.


	3. In Which General Hux Reminds You Not To Kill Anyone Without Permission.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which you lose a sparring match against General Hux, reminisce about the incident with Kylo Ren, and confess some of your past doings.

You fall onto your ass in the middle of the sparring ring without caring too much for appearances, letting yourself rest there and feel the burn of muscle fatigue and soreness where General Hux landed hits on you with the brutal, efficient strikes of an experienced boxer.  There’s something oddly satisfying about knowing that you’ll skip the painkillers and bruise-fading creams, knowing that you’ll ache tomorrow.  Maybe it’s because fighting is the most honest thing you know, and the only person you feel like you can trust here on Starkiller didn’t refuse your offer to spar.  You’re fairly sure that he only agreed because it’s late and there’s no one else here tonight, but he still agreed and you’re quietly grateful for that because the fight has finally loosened your tongue.

The incident with Kylo Ren was nearly a month ago, but it haunts you.  There’d been a battery of tests afterwards at the medical center, but your results were still fairly close to the baseline results in your file.  Trauma it might have been, but it was minor in comparison to what could have happened.  The tech who had released you had mentioned that Kylo Ren used the same method for interrogating prisoners.  From this, you gathered just how mild the incident had been.  He had thumbed through your pages, let things pop up as they would, and then abandoned your book and walked away.  He hadn’t rummaged around to see what else he could find, hadn’t ripped out anything he thought he might find useful.  It had been a controlled display of power, and you had difficulty shaking the thought that maybe when he’d been skimming the surface of your thoughts, he had seen your curiosity.  It was entirely possible that you’d brought it on yourself.

You’d tentatively slipped a comment to that effect into your debriefing with General Hux the next morning.  He had been visibly annoyed by this, informed you that Kylo Ren did as Kylo Ren pleased, regardless of the wishes of everyone around him.  You would, General Hux had told you, see plenty of evidence of that as long as Kylo Ren remained on Starkiller, so you were not to blame.  Was that understood?

You had snapped out one of your finest salutes complete with clicking boot heels, given General Hux a, “Sir, yes, sir!” and then proceeded with the day’s schedule as planned.  You’d never spoken another word to Kylo Ren since, actively thought through the process of wrapping your hands whenever he was in the room while continuing your work, and didn’t flinch if he happened to stand or pass by too close to you.  The one time you’d reacted to him, it was to dodge a flying portion of a destroyed console that met the wrong end of his lightsaber.  The communications officer who did get hit ended up with a nasty concussion and a broken collarbone.

“I should have listened to you, sir,” you say after you’ve caught your breath.  It was a hard fight, even harder than you thought it might be.  General Hux is taller, heavier, has longer limbs and thus the advantage.  He’s also stronger than you are, but you’re fast, flexible, and agile.  Surprisingly, you were relatively equal in terms of reflex speed, but overall if you’d been betting, you’d have put your money on him.  You would have been ten credits richer if that were the case.

“About?”  He sounds remarkably gentle for a man who generally (ha!) snaps out his orders with the expectation that they will be followed with alacrity, but when you lift your head to look at him, he seems unusually relaxed.  He rakes damp tendrils of hair out of his face with one hand, gloves dangling from the other, looking down at you with surprisingly mild curiosity.  You wonder if winning the fight has had the unintentional side effect of making him feel like he has less need of being exceptionally reserved.  Part of you wonders if maybe he’s only like this with you, but you shush that corner of your mind.  General Hux is not the impenetrable statue of ice and stone that people make him out to be, and the evidence is there if only they would look.

“Your advice about Kylo Ren, sir,” you say, dropping your eyes to your feet.  You study your regulation training sneakers, their pale ash color marked with your rank, and his charcoal grey shoes with his general’s stripes.  Inevitably, your eyes find their way up the slim, pale ankles and lean calves of a runner’s build with long, clean lines designed for speed and distance that you can’t help but admire.  It makes General Hux surprisingly graceful.  He might fight with brutal efficiency, but his motion is fluid and lovely and you’re ever so slightly jealous of how effortless he makes it look.  It’s like minimalism made dynamic and given form.

“That was a month ago, Lieutenant, and I thought I was clear that you were not at fault,” he says, and he’s frowning when you glance up at him.  This is not his usual frown because his usual frown is a stiff, thin-lipped expression that’s half-married to disgust and having a steamy affair with irritation.  No, this frown is softer somehow, concerned.  That he’s willing to display it at all is touching and makes you more emotional than you want to admit.  You want his approval more than you think you’ve wanted most things in your life, and it’s ridiculous, but it’s true and you can be honest with yourself in the aftermath of your sparring session.

“Crystal, sir,” you confirm, smiling up at him with the trusting confidence of a child.  His expression is almost fond as he extends a hand to help you up, and you take it.  His hand is warm around your fingers, his grip reassuringly firm as he pulls you to your feet.

“Good,” he answers, satisfaction seeping into his voice.  You’re struck again by the fact that he’s loosened his iron grip on outward indicators of his emotions when he continues, “You’re skilled at hand to hand, Lieutenant.  That wasn’t mentioned in your file.”  The pleasure of his compliment and the brief touch of his hand is short-lived, cut off by the comment about the file that preceded you from the Academy.

You know why it’s not mentioned in your file, of course you do. It’s because males tend to be built bigger than females, meaning that while girls can dominate close quarters and long range combat if they please, males still have a serious advantage in hand to hand.  Though you’re a little taller than average height, most of the boys you competed with towered over you.  Or dwarfed you.  Or squashed you, there was plenty of that too, accompanied by the usual concealed groping while you were pinned.  You remembered your instructor clicking his tongue and mentioning that if you’d only been a boy, you might have had a chance.

This was patently untrue because size was still a factor in every fight you’d been in, but it still insulted every one of your male classmates within earshot with the implication that you might have been better than all of them at this thing they thought of as theirs.  They’d made it a very personal point to demoralize you, the effort spearheaded by a bully who had been taunting you since you’d been accepted into the Imperial Academy.  You reported it twice, but the boy was never punished and the harassment increased and grew steadily worse.  You ended up formulating a plan for an ambush.

You nearly killed him.

The Academy’s Commandant graciously overlooked this and quietly removed you from anything related to hand to hand combat, including erasing its presence from your file.  Your parents were not pleased to be informed about the incident.

The idea of telling General Hux this tale makes you want to squirm.  It’s not a story you’re proud of, even if you think the galaxy would be better off without the boy who tried to systematically turn your life into a living hell.  That and you have to wonder if General Hux has already heard it once, just without your name attached.  His father is the Imperial Commandant after all, though you’ve never had the impression that General Hux and his father are close.  You are fairly certain, however, that the Huxes know the family of the boy you would have sent to an early grave.

“There was an incident,” you admit, and then pause, trying to decide how to put it.  General Hux waits you out, suddenly, infuriatingly patient.  You open your mouth to continue, shut it, and then sigh before explaining, “Cadet- no, Lieutenant Hitea now, he bullied me during my fifth year.  I couldn’t have won against him in an open fight, so I ambushed him.  He ended up in the infirmary.  My… indiscretion was overlooked and I was removed and banned from subsequent hand to hand classes, trainings, and competitions.  A few classmates helped me keep up during my last year in exchange for help in other areas.”

The silence that follows your explanation is excruciating.  You can’t look General Hux in the eye, but don’t know precisely why you’re so ashamed.  It could be any number of reasons, first and foremost of which is that General Hux is himself so controlled and aware of consequences and repercussions that it’s not difficult for you to understand why he has no patience for people who do not possess the same qualities.  This story is about your total lapse in control and foresight.

The second you chalk up to the fact that it was the final straw for a real blowout with your parents, who had never been fans of your wanting to enter the Imperial Academy anyway.  They had tried to shame you into leaving, attacked your character when you refused.  Your relationship with them has honestly never recovered and you haven’t gone home since.  It was one of your reasons for wanting Starkiller as your first station after graduating from the Academy.  It was sufficiently far from your home planet that in terms of convenience, visiting your parents was out of the question.

The third reason is that the Academy’s Commandant apparently had a fair bit of trouble trying to convince the Hiteas that not expelling you was not condoning your actions.  This was a bit of a farce in your opinion considering you were all being trained for war, but you kept that to yourself as the Academy traded banning you from anything including hand to hand and paying for the boy’s medical bills in exchange for their keeping the incident relatively quiet.  It mostly preserved your reputation in the sense that the First Order’s command structure at large didn’t know which cadet had almost killed another.  For all they knew, that cadet was already commissioned as an officer or might still be at the Academy.  For all they knew, that cadet might have gotten expelled as expected, could even be dead.  The Academy’s reputation was actually bolstered by the incident, though the affair was publicly frowned upon.

“So that was you,” General Hux says finally, and this suspiciously innocuous comment sounds like the prelude to something awful, so you ready yourself for the worst as best you can.  Let the axe fall on your head, at least you were honest.  You had liked being General Hux’s aide while it lasted, and you’ll miss the perks of quiet hours working with him and having people jump when you tell them to on his behalf.

“Don’t kill anyone without my express permission, Lieutenant,” he continues sounding very grave, but there’s an undercurrent of amusement in his tone.  Your head snaps up in disbelief, and you take in the curl of a rare smile, the bright, laughing shimmer of starlight eyes.

You become firmly convinced that you are dreaming and waking up is absolutely out of the question.

“Sir, yes, sir,” you bark, snapping into one of your most perfect salutes and a roguish grin to hide your bone-deep relief.

“Very good, Lieutenant,” he says, nodding his approval.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Reader's hand-to-hand style is actually based mostly on taekwondo, with the addition of boxing and submissions. General Hux's style is mostly based on boxing, with some muay thai and submissions. If anyone reads Girls of the Wild's (which I highly recommend!), Reader is like Daldal Choi and General Hux is like Moonyoung Lee. It's not a strict comparison, of course, but it's close enough for this particular scene!
> 
> As per usual, kudos and comments appreciated! Especially comments! I still encourage you all to just copy and paste your favorite lines into the comment box because I'd love to know what you liked most! Multiple lines are totally okay. ;D


	4. In Which General Hux Exerts Authority

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which you apprehend a would-be assassin and your datapad becomes a casualty.

Subtly, you eye the technician watching General Hux consult a pair of communications officers over your datapad.  There’s something too sharp about the man’s face as he does it, something hungry.  Everyone else in the room has gone back to what they were doing before, though they glance toward your commanding officer every so often.  General Hux has that kind of presence, has so much charisma that you’re fairly certain that it would be more difficult for them  _ not _ to glance his way now and then.  This technician is different, staring far too long and rarely looking at the open circuit panel by the door under his unmoving hands.  

It’s suspicious, to say the least.

You have a bad feeling about the man, but without proof beyond “He was watching the general in a highly suspicious manner!” you’re shit out of luck.  It’s partly because it’s not that uncommon for someone to give General Hux dirty looks when his back is turned.  If you started policing that kind of insubordination, you would never get anything else done.  The other reason you can’t openly voice your hunch is because it also sounds like something highly unprofessional.  It sounds like envy, sounds like covetousness, like you’re staking a claim on a man who is metaphorically out of your reach.  General Hux is a handsome man, and one well worth staking a claim on in your opinion, but he respects and values professionalism too much to tolerate that kind of nonsense.  You value his good opinion too much to risk losing it for something that may turn out to be nothing.

So all-in-all, there’s little that you can do besides keep a weather eye on this technician who is so focused on General Hux that he seems not to even see you watching him.  Granted, you’re skimming a report from the chief engineer on your datapad while you wait for your superior to finish his consultation, but you’re watching the technician from under your eyelashes after every line or so and he hasn’t noticed.  It strikes you as careless if he is, in fact, a spy.  It wouldn’t be the first time, although there haven’t been any incidents at Starkiller since you arrived.

“Lieutenant.”  Your head snaps up and you look attentively towards General Hux, await his orders.  There’s a tightness around his eyes, the corners of his mouth turning down slightly rather than remaining level.  He looks tired, and you’re immediately concerned, wondering whether or not he’s sleeping properly.  You know he eats well enough, you tend to visit the officer’s mess together for lunch, and you bring him dinner every night in your shared office before the two of you settle down for more work.  With food ruled out, it’s either sleep or stress, possibly both, but you couldn’t guess which one it might be.

“Let’s go,” he says, and the words are almost more sigh than vocalization.  You don’t respond out loud, just bob your head in a nod that he doesn’t even see and fall in behind him as you begin leaving the room.  You approach the door and the technician, catch the man’s eyes as they meet yours for a moment before you refocus your gaze on General Hux’s back a step in front of you.  You make a mental note to find out who the technician is later, unable to shake that this could be an important detail.  General Hux doesn’t have to know about your investigations unless you find out something more definitive.

The two of you pass the technician, and then there’s a quiet clanking behind you.  It’s followed by the soft, slick noise of metal sliding against metal and a heavy step.  You react before you can even think, shifting your grip on the datapad in your hands and twisting as you swing it wide.  The point of the curved blade has been thrust forward with enough force to go through the datapad to the dagger’s guard, and the technician’s eyes have gone wide with shock.  He didn't expect you to intervene, didn't expect you to react at all, didn't expect you to be anything but meek and obedient to your commanding officer, oblivious to all else.  His miscalculation is, you think, unfortunate.

The momentum of your spin is still whirling you around, and you slam your foot down on the technician’s, pinning it to the floor.  His inertia continues carrying him forward, pivoting on the point where your foot has fastened his to the ground.  He hits the floor hard, with the dull sound of flesh and bone impacting on a solid surface, and then he rolls, catching your ankle and trying to pull you down with him.  His grip isn’t secure, but it’s tenacious and you’re wrenched around toward him, pulling as you try to free yourself and avoid falling on the floor after him.  If he gets you on the floor, he’ll have the advantage because, like General Hux, he’s taller and weighs more.  The strength of his hand suggests that he might be stronger than you are too, so it is imperative that you don’t let him trip you up.

You quit pulling and lash out with your captured foot, aiming for his head.  Your leg is stronger than his arm could ever be, and the toe of your boot connects with the side of his jaw, snapping his teeth together with a vicious clicking sound.  He lets go of your ankle reflexively, and the sudden release is the thing that almost topples you despite your good balance.  You recover fast, faster than he does after taking a kick to the face, and when he rolls onto his belly to get his feet under him, you skip forward and land with a foot between his shoulderblades.  He crashes back to the ground with a grunt, and then he’s wheezing as he tries to get his breath back.  He claws desperately at the floor, trying to push himself up with his arms, but he can’t breathe let alone get up the strength to throw you off.

It takes you a moment to recover yourself, to shift from pure, instinctual reaction to being able to look at the situation in a rational manner.  You stare down at the technician, at the long point of the blade stabbed through the datapad against the wall (when did it end up there?), and at General Hux’s boots only a step away, streak-free and flawlessly polished, the toes of which are now pointed in your direction.  You have to wonder what, exactly, he’s thinking at this juncture.  That you reacted quickly and without hesitation in the interests of protecting him is unquestionable, but you find it highly unlikely that he would think that you’ve saved his life.  If you hadn’t been there, General Hux might have been injured, but the spy would have gotten a blaster shot to the gut for his troubles before General Hux would have gone to get himself patched up.

You dare a glance upward, not sure what you’ll find knowing that your intervention is probably appreciated, but wasn’t strictly necessary.  Unsurprisingly, General Hux’s expression is flat, emotionless.  You check for traces of any emotion at all, his eyes, his mouth, his jaw, his shoulders, his hands.  For once, General Hux’s body language is so closed that even you have no clue what is going on behind his pale, icy eyes.  The room around you is frozen and silent except for the ambient hum of processors, and you wonder whether or not anyone has sent a message to the security forces.  You hope so because you’d like to not worry about having to tangle with the still-breathing spy under your boot, but it seems minor as you wait for General Hux to say something, anything.

“The First Order will fall,” the not-technician gasps unexpectedly from under your foot because he probably only just now got his breath back, and you look back down at him with sharp contempt.  Doesn’t he know he’s beaten?  Doesn’t he know that he’s lost?  He picked his moment poorly and never even touched General Hux, hardly even put up any kind of fight against you.  His refusal to acknowledge this and accept it gracefully makes the fire running in your blood turn wild, raging through your veins, heating your skin until you flush with anger.  You grind the heel of your boot into his spine and he wilts under the pain even as he puts on a brave face and stares up at you defiantly.

“Do you want to die?” you snarl at him, and you sound more animal than human and it would frighten you if there wasn’t still too much adrenaline in your system.  The hormone overrides your better judgement, makes you less aware that the superior you have spent your entire brief career trying to impress and satisfy is standing right there.  You’re focused instead on the fact that if security doesn’t get here soon and no one pulls a blaster on this idiot of a spy, then he’ll work up enough courage to try to fight you again.  You’ll end up on the floor and it’ll be a nasty fight, and one you might not win.  The thought that you might legitimately fail at something directly in front of General Hux reminds you that he is, in fact, right there.  Furtively, you check his expression again and find his face just as impassive as it was before, but it’s different this time.  Rather than taking in the tableaux before him, he meets your eyes, holds your gaze, demands your attention, and this development throws your hormone-induced certainty off-kilter.

“Lieutenant,” he says, and his voice is heavy with an authority that blankets your fury, extinguishes the flames and drags the rest of you out from underneath it.  It’s a disconcerting experience to say the least because you’re not in the habit of feeling like you’ve lost yourself to anything, much less your own anger.  His face is still blank, still as devoid of disapproval as it is of approval, and your nervousness increases as you start to actually feel somewhat lost.

“Sir?” you manage to respond, and the word is not the acknowledgement you meant it to be, but an uneasy question.  You wonder if you look as unsure as you suddenly feel, nervousness making you aware that there’s a tremor in your hands and you don’t know when it started.  It’s a trivial thing to worry about considering the situation as a whole, but you want to know, and you want to know if anyone has noticed it.  You would especially like to know if General Hux has noticed, but this is not the time to ask, not when you just incapacitated a would-be assassin in front of a roomful of people

“Stand down,” he orders, his voice is calm, even, but still weighted with that expectation of being obeyed, his eyes never wavering from yours.  It’s almost as if he’s trying to tell you something with the force of that look, but you have no idea what the message is supposed to be when there’s not a trace of anything besides that terrifying blankness.

“Woof,” you mumble as you obey and step away from the spy.  It’s not until both your feet are back on the floor that you realize that you’ve said it loud enough for General Hux to hear.  Anxiety floods you and you’re so overcome with dread that you’re not aware of much besides the sinking of your stomach.  It’s takes another few heartbeats before you catch the way a corner of General Hux’s mouth has curved ever so slightly upward.  He looks like he’s fighting a smile, and suddenly relief washes over you and you have to keep yourself from reeling.

A security team bursts into the room, and then everything dissolves into chaos.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not a long chapter this time, but more of Reader being a badass.
> 
> Kudos and comments always appreciated! Go ahead and copy and paste your favorite bits into a comment, I love when you guys do that! Or tell me something else you loved about this chapter. Or previous chapters. Or tell me how much you love Hux, we Hux-lovers have to stick together! <3


	5. In which General Hux Advises You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which you have an unpleasant encounter with Commandant Hux and are subsequently rescued by General Hux.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who the tall man with greying hair currently backing you into your own desk is.  The set of his eyebrows and the line of his mouth and jaw are all painfully familiar to you, as are the pale eyes, though these tend more toward grey than the blue you’ve grown used to.  The man leans a little bit further into you, his eyes alight with cruel amusement, and you bend backward to maintain that last bit of distance between the two of you.  You have to support yourself with a hand behind your back, fingertips pressed painfully against the surface of your desk as you do your best to face General Hux’s father.

You do not appreciate Commandant Brendol Hux’s intimidation tactics.

The last time you saw Commandant Hux he was sitting with a number of other men behind a long table deciding whether or not you were going to be expelled from the Imperial Academy.  He apparently has a wonderful memory for faces because you saw the recognition in his eyes when he came in and found you working alone in the office, General Hux having stepped out for a few minutes.  You expect your commanding officer probably visited the restroom and then went to have a cigarette, as is his habit around this time of day.

You are desperately hoping that he gets back quickly.

“This is quite the coincidence, isn’t it, Cadet?” Commandant Hux says, feigning friendliness as he ignores your proper rank, “I haven’t seen you since the hearing concerning Lieutenant Hitea.”  Another dig at you, trying to get a reaction.  He won’t use your proper rank, but he’ll give  _ Hitea _ his proper rank.  Your instinctual reaction to this is to hit the man, but you firmly remind yourself that this is not what General Hux would do and resist the urge.  For that matter, General Hux probably wouldn’t have let his father back him into a corner, but you were too surprised at the sudden appearance of an unexpected and unauthorized guest to control yourself properly at first.

“You were missed at the graduation ceremony this year, sir,” you say politely instead, a neutral non-comment.  It is also, unfortunately, a rather transparent move and Commandant Hux actually chuckles.  You would love to hit him with something heavy (sadly, you have nothing close at hand), or maybe kick him in the balls (the Commandant is in a fantastic position for that, actually), but you don’t think General Hux would be pleased with the situation.  Then again, you don’t think he’ll be pleased with the situation anyway, but you do try to minimize the amount of displeasure General Hux runs across on any given day.  That is, as you recall, your job after a fashion.

“I hear that my son has finally taken on an aide, and to find that aide is you,” the Commandant pauses and looks you over for a moment.  His expression is inscrutable, and it’s difficult to tell if he's looking for a discrepancy in your uniform or if there’s something sexual motivating the look.  It’s insulting that he would assume that you might think that you could get away with anything, and you’re a little insulted on General Hux’s behalf, too, that his father thinks he would miss you being out of compliance with regulations.  You swallow your indignation and let it smoulder in your belly as Commandant Hux comments, “Very surprising.  Does he know about your… infraction?”

“I informed him,” you respond curtly, recalling the evening in question.  Sparring with General Hux for the first time.  His comment on your skill in hand to hand.  Your confession.  The awful waiting for the inevitable dismissal from his service.  His half-joking reminder that you needed his permission if you wanted to kill someone.  All in all, it had been the best possible outcome that you could have wished for.

“And here you still are,” Commandant Hux murmurs with faux wonderment, “Curious.”  His eyes drift down over your body a second time, and you flush angrily, unable to help yourself this time.  What he said was innocent enough, it’s what he implies now as he appraises your body that makes you unconscionably angry.  The man could be your grandfather, he has no right to look at you that way, has no right to terrify you into wondering whether or not you’re going to commit career suicide within the next ten seconds.

You double back on your thoughts for a moment and wonder if Commandant Hux actually has enough influence to destroy you professionally.  You don’t think he could convince his son to fire you, but maybe he could turn you into a liability and inconvenience by going through others.  That might get General Hux to dismiss you from your position, regardless of his apparent satisfaction with your work.  This takes you back to the place you started from, and you silently lament the fact that for all the First Order’s rules and regulations, there are probably none that can protect you from the Commandant.  This, you realize, is one of the reasons that this kind of treatment makes you so angry.  You are too used to being unable to fight back in spite of having the skills to do so.  The other reasons Commandant Hux is making you angry are as follows:

First of all, you did not and are not seducing General Hux in order to maintain your position.  You maintain your position as his aide by doing a damn good job.  You listen and learn and issue orders and fetch things for the General.  Not all of these things are strictly professional, but you flatter yourself that you, as a person, care about your boss, as a person, and as such you do not resent bringing him tea in the morning, dinner in the evening, or working out with him on the occasion he needs a partner.  Your first and foremost duty is, essentially, to make General Hux’s life easier, and given that you don’t do much else around Starkiller, you’ve turned it into a bit of an art.

Second of all, that Brendol Hux can accuse his son of such a high degree of unprofessionalism absolutely boggles the mind.  Mixing business with pleasure is the oldest, most tired way of doing things, and there is so little evidence to suggest that General Hux ever crosses this line or ever would that you honestly can’t even imagine being propositioned by General Hux.  You would probably drop dead from shock, to tell the truth, so whether you would agree or not agree would end up being a bit of a moot point.  The other half of this train of thought is that if Commandant Hux is so quick to jump to this assumption, then it’s very likely that he’s sleeping with his secretary.

You wonder if you could potentially use this as leverage as the Commandant gets a little closer and you nearly teeter over backwards onto your desk.

“Commandant Hux,” General Hux says from the door, “You’re distracting my aide.”  His voice is tight and gloriously cold, it’s possessive and disapproving and you could swear that you’ve never heard anything more beautiful in the galaxy.  You’ll need to find a suitable way to show your gratitude, whether that’s a box of excellent tea or the acquisition of some high quality alcohol (the General has discerning tastes, but you have a good idea of what he likes) for rescuing you from his errant father.

“She did not appear to be working on anything significant when I came looking for you,” Commandant Hux retorts without backing away, and you bristle with silent offense.  Two minutes earlier or later and you would have been doing something more important than writing up a very necessary clarifying message to Captain Phasma, but no, of course the Commandant has to walk in while you’re working on something that looks trivial to him.

“It’s not that any particular portion of her work is particularly significant,” General Hux responds, shrugging off his overcoat and hanging it up on the rack beside the door, “It’s significance lies in the sum of its parts, and the significant reduction of inanity I have to deal with.”

“Inanity has always been a part of authority and responsibility,” Commandant Hux reminds his son, his voice severe and reprimanding, but he hasn’t moved an inch and your back and abdominal muscles are aching with the effort of holding yourself up in this unnatural position.  You find yourself tempted to just let yourself fall onto your desk, but that would draw more attention to you, not less.  More attention, at this juncture when the Commandant and the General are clearly engaged in a battle of wills, would probably be unwise.  Two looks of disapproval seem, to you, to be a very unnecessary addition to today’s trial by fire.

“Well, that explains you,” you mutter under your breath instead, and immediately regret voicing the thought as the Commandant’s attention zeroes in on you with the precision of a laser slicing through the dark because he’s still far, far too close to you.  You have the irrational thought that he might be able to hear your heart pounding in your chest, but remind yourself firmly that the Commandant is, in fact, quite human and his hearing is not quite  _ that _ good.

“I wondered when that would come out.  You haven’t changed since you tried to murder Hitea.  The second you feel backed into a corner, you get mouthy,” Commandant Hux remarks sharply, closing the last bit of space between you with a small step, his chest nearly pressed up against yours.  You have nowhere left to go to get away from him, feel your lips pulling back from your teeth as a nonverbal warning that he needs to move back before he gets bitten-

“She implied I was a cannibal once,” General Hux offers, his voice suddenly rich and lush with unfettered amusement in a way you’ve never heard before.  Stars, if he spoke like that all the time, you think you might need to keep a change of underwear in your pocket.  Still, your mouth drops open in abject horror that he would tell his father about  _ that _ particular incident.  Of all the comments for him to pick, it has to be  _ that _ one?  You would have preferred the “Woof” anecdote-

“So you know about her problems with authority,” Commandant Hux says, straightening up and stepping away from you.  Suddenly you’re abjectly, totally grateful to General Hux for using the cannibal joke because it’s shocking enough to make Commandant Hux approach his son, shocking enough to make him step away from you, if only for a moment.  You inhale your first free breath since the Commandant walked in and make a mental note that you need at least two items to thank General Hux.

“I know you enjoy silent and terrified subordinates, but I do enjoy her occasional quip,” General Hux answers, glancing at you.  It’s a quick flicker of his eyes, but you flash a grateful smile at him in response, and his lips curl into a satisfied smirk.  This brief, mostly nonverbal exchange is not lost on the Commandant.  He looks back at you, and then stares hard at his son.

“You always had terrible taste in women,” the Commandant accuses his son, and then has the audacity to point at you, “This one is no exception.”  You want to roll your eyes at the continued implication that the only reason why General Hux would put up with you is because you’re sleeping together.  Is it such a stretch to believe that a relationship between a man and woman could be platonic and professional?  You instantly wonder what this says about the Commandant’s secretary again.

“All the better to savor,” General Hux murmurs with affected carelessness, and you choke on your surprise because this is becoming a little too ridiculous.  Part of you wants to contribute, the rest of you can’t get your shit together enough to do it.  You bite your lip to prevent yourself from starting to laugh, and Commandant Hux chooses this moment to look at you again.  His expression shifts to something absolutely appalled, and it takes you a moment to understand what he thinks he’s seeing.

The lip biting is too easily construed as sexual, your eyes wide as if you’re recalling something, and after adding General Hux’s comment about ‘savoring’...  Well, it’s not difficult to see why Commandant Hux has jumped to the conclusion that his son might enjoy kneeling for his aide a little too much.

You are dying.  You are legitimately dying, you are unable to breathe because if you breathe you will start laughing and you cannot laugh until the Commandant is sold on this idea.  You cannot even bring yourself to care anymore that he thinks you and General Hux are involved because honestly?  Most of Starkiller believes the same at this point.  It’s become rather a lost cause, as far as you’re concerned, and judging from his utilization of this misconception, General Hux seems to think so too.

“Son,” the Commandant says gravely ( _ stars, you are in hell, this is hell, if he stays here much longer you won’t make it _ ), “Do yourself a favor and get rid of this…”  He looks at you with distaste, with contempt, but he’s a petty old man.  General Hux has played his father so very neatly, and while it's surprising, the Commandant deserves it.  Then again, maybe only General Hux could manage it, being the man’s son.  The exchange seems to you to have the flavor of the student surpassing the master.  Commandant Hux is still looking for a suitable descriptor of the apparent disaster that is you, and he comes up with, “Deadweight.”

If you could take this at all seriously, that comment would hurt.  Alas, you cannot take anything seriously at the moment.

“I’ll find my own way to the officer’s mess,” Commandant Hux continues, looking at his son sternly, “I expect to see you there within the hour.”  There’s something in the way the Commandant expects to be obeyed that reminds you strongly of his son, including the ominous radiation of displeasure and threat.

“Understood,” General Hux answers, reverting to his usual neutrality with an ease that has to be seen to be believed.  The Commandant turns and leaves without any further ado, apparently unable to tolerate being in the same room as you any longer.  General Hux holds a gloved finger to his lips in the universal gesture for silence, holding your wide-eyed stare.  Obediently, you manage to hold onto your wits until the door has closed.

“I suggest you avoid the officer’s mess tonight,” General Hux says dryly before you can start laughing.  You manage to aim for your chair, letting yourself fall into it as the laughter explodes out of you so hard that you double over, hand covering your mouth.  

You suspect that you’ll regret losing your shit so thoroughly in front of your commanding officer later, but General Hux is chuckling too as he has a seat at his desk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god where do I even start with this chapter. First and foremost, I'm aware that I'm probably using some artistic license and flexibility as far as the canon goes. Secondly, Commandant Hux has an immensely complicated relationship with Reader that I cannot even begin to get into narrative-wise because I'm trying to keep the focus on Reader and Hux, BUT THIS IS WHAT NOTES ARE FOR, YES? ;D
> 
> You may or may not have noticed that the Reader is, in fact, rather an exceptional and high achieving personage. While they were not top of their class at the Imperial Academy, they were definitely in the top ten percent, not someone that you can exactly just dismiss. Unsurprisingly, Commandant Hux wanted to recruit the Reader for his still-running covert club of cadets. He was going to issue an invitation when the incident where the Reader almost beat Hitea to death happened. If the Reader had left Hitea to die and/or made it look like an accident, they would have been recruited by Commandant Hux and probably would have accepted in all honesty.
> 
> Of course, as we already know, this didn't happen. Reader actually ended up getting caught, and for this reason was not issued an invitation to the Commandant's little club. Commandant Hux is actually still rather bitter about this, and was highly disappointed that he lost as promising an officer as the Reader. When his son, General Hux, came along and handpicked the Reader right out of the Academy straight after graduation, Commandant Hux had mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, he's proud that his son's judgement aligned with his own, on the other, he thinks that the Reader could stand a fair amount of improvement under his personal tutelage (which would probably have included an illicit relationship, tbh). General Hux, let it be known, would not agree with this assessment at all and would argue the importance of training one's aide oneself, but I digress.
> 
> Under all of this, the Commandant is honestly a little jealous that General Hux was able to get ahold of the Reader, and General Hux is aware of this and rubs it in his father's face a little bit here in this chapter. It might not seem like it, given how condescending the Commandant is to the Reader, but part of the dynamic is also due to the fact that the Commandant does care about his son's rank and reputation and is genuinely worried that the Reader could cause problems for General Hux in the future. General Hux obviously doesn't consider this to be enough of a possibility to be concerned about.
> 
> Add to all of that a mild, one-sided sort-of rivalry between son and father and there we have it.
> 
> As always, kudos appreciated, and leave me a comment about your fave parts!


	6. In Which General Hux Advises You.  Again.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which you attempt to negotiate with a very stubborn General Hux and fail.

You still can’t really wrap your mind around why General Hux prefers your broom closet of a room to his quarters.

He explained this to you the first time he came, but that doesn’t mean it makes sense.  General Hux is a practical man, and this is not even remotely practical.

Your room was quite literally a broom closet before you arrived.  There is space for your tiny shelf of a bed, a wardrobe for your uniforms, a bathroom with a sink and a narrow little shower stall, and that’s pretty much it.  There’s not even really enough room for  _ you _ in there, but General Hux wanted you close in case of emergencies, so the broom closet was converted as per his wishes.  When he visits, there is barely enough room to breathe.  This is an advantage in some ways, and not so much in others.

“We should really be doing this sort of thing in your quarters,” you repeat for the umpteenth time.  You probably say it every ten minutes when he comes, and somehow he finds a new response every time.  Most of these responses set you snickering, an occurrence that continues until he finds a new way to shut you up.  He’s a very creative, very resourceful person, and you stand by your comment once upon a time about him being the most terrifyingly competent man you’ve ever met.

“I heard you the first time,” he mutters against your cheekbone, sounding annoyed, “It’s unnecessary for you to continue repeating it.”  This, you think as you press your face into the curve of his throat, is the beauty of sleeping with your superior.  You’re familiar enough with him already to know when and how far to push.  As it stands, you are aware that half of his annoyance is pure stubbornness.  He chooses to have your liaisons here in your room, is determined to stay here for the entire duration of said liaisons, and will continue to do so.  It is quite possibly the only moronic thing you’ve ever seen him do and you find it stupidly endearing for a commanding officer who can evaluate thousands of probabilities faster than you can swallow a mouthful of coffee.

“I’m going to repeat it until you take a hint, sir,” you tell him, and he grunts irritably as he gathers your hair and drops it over your shoulder, away from his face.  

“I’ve explained why I prefer it here,” he reminds you pointedly, and you hide a smile by pressing a series of soft kisses to his collarbone.  You are fairly certain that he sees right through this move, but he is fond enough of your lips on his skin that he doesn’t acknowledge it out loud.  

“We’ve been doing this for weeks, I think we can assume that I don’t feel pressured professionally by your personal attentions,” you say after a short silence during which you’ve felt him relax.  Possibly the only advantage of your tiny shelf of a bed is that it forces you to stay close to him and allows you to be intimately aware of his every breath.  You know when he relaxes, and these are the times you choose to press your case.  A mattress big enough for two people and accompanying sheet set and more than one pillow, these things that General Hux undoubtedly has and that you desire.

You are a simple woman.

“That could change tomorrow,” he says, his voice very carefully neutral, and you roll your eyes.  One of the unexpected pleasures of sleeping with your boss has been discovering what he sounds like when he lets his control slip a little.  You’re not sure if he’s allowed this because he trusts you or if he just trusts that he has the upper hand should you decide to attempt to use it somehow.  You also think he knows that you wouldn’t use it, that you respect him too much for that, that you would rather walk away if it came to such pettiness.  No matter how you spin it, General Hux has nothing to fear from you.

“I am offended that you think me that fickle.  And that we don’t deserve to fall asleep in an actual bed and not on a shelf,” you tell him, mustering up all the indignity that you can manage as you push yourself up to look him in the face.  He examines your expression, trying to parse how much of your indignation is real and how much of it is feigned.  He drops his head back onto your pillow after a moment and sighs deeply.

“I regret not better improving this room,” he mumbles with uncharacteristic gloominess, “We would be more comfortable and you would stop harping on incessantly about my quarters.”

“You can’t actually remodel this room  _ because _ of your quarters,” you point out because this is the first time he has made any kind of concession, “They had to use your bathroom’s piping structure in order to create mine.”  You’ve finally won a battle.  You are a long way from winning the war, you’re sure, but all progress is still progress, no matter how small.  You allow yourself a brief moment to savor your tiny victory.

“I never anticipated having an aide.  If I had, I would have had them attach a room to my quarters with the bathroom shared,” General Hux explains to the ceiling.  It’s a gesture that’s very much like that time he complained about junior officers acting like he was going to eat them, when he rolled his eyes up toward the heavens as if in supplication to the gods.  He doesn’t espouse any religion, and neither do you for that matter, but you suppose that in times of trial, anyone might need to look to some kind of higher power, regardless of that higher power’s existence.

“Not even you can plan for everything, sir.  And no one would have expected you to start fucking your aide like a garden variety general.”  You wonder for a moment if that was too familiar, the reassurance accompanied with the somewhat back-handed compliment, but part of your relationship with General Hux is exactly that: the readily accepted knowledge that he  _ is _ human, that he  _ can _ make mistakes, that you will  _ not _ gloss over them out of fear of him, and that you  _ still _ hold him in the highest regard.  

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he says briefly, his tone edging towards irritated before he continues with, “How do you sleep on this thing?”  It’s a genuine question for him, and you understand it’s source.  The little bed you call your own and that he sometimes shares is rather small, more of a bunk than a proper bed, and seemingly sized for a child, not an adult.  Especially not an adult as tall as General Hux.

“By not being as tall as you are,” you answer him promptly, and he growls as he shifts.  He does it quickly, without warning, and unlike most other occasions when he gets impatient and moves around too much, you don’t manage to save yourself.  You fall off him, dragging the blankets with you.  You land on the floor with a thump and a yelp, and then you shrug and immediately gather your bedding around yourself in a makeshift cloak of sorts.  Your bed isn’t that high, certainly not high enough for a fall from it to be all that serious so long as you miss the corner of the wardrobe, which you normally do.  You live here, you’ve had plenty of practice at it.

General Hux was not so fortunate the one time he fell off your bed.  You still don’t know what he told the medical staff about the nasty gash in his forehead.  Perhaps he didn’t tell them anything at all.  Maybe he just glared at them in that way he has and they treated him silently.  You find yourself more amused at this irrelevant bit of imagining than you probably should be.  This amusement suggests that you might be a more vindictive person that you’ve ever thought yourself to be, but you mentally shrug it off.  No one’s perfect, least of all you.  

“Bring those back, if you would,” General Hux sighs, looking your way and beckoning with one hand.  You outright laugh at him from under the warm shelter of your bedcovers.  Your blankets are the spoils of war from a battle that you didn’t win, you are not about to give them up without receiving something of at least equal value.

“With all due respect, sir, I refuse unless we relocate to your quarters,” you say as primly as you can manage.  You can do a more than fair imitation of General Hux’s speech patterns, and you put the ability to good use at this very moment.

“Respect, my arse,” he snorts, gesturing you to return to bed with his hand again.  The movement is quicker, sharper this time, betraying a hint of impatience.

“I  _ do _ , sir,” you tell him emphatically with your cheekiest smile, “I can demonstrate, if you like.”

“Minx,” he scolds, but his heart’s not in the reprimand and he can’t stop himself from grinning.  You count it as another small victory.

“Are you entertained, sir?” you ask though you already know the answer.  You just want to hear him say it out loud.

“Excellently,” he responds, and his voice has gone rich and lovely again and a pleasing tingle of warmth spreads through your chest.

“Have I earned myself a real bed yet?” you prod, sensing that this could be a good moment  to ask.

“No,” he mutters with an expressive roll of his eyes, turning back to the ceiling.  He’s not quite glaring yet, but he seems to be trending in that direction.

“Your back is going to hurt again in the morning,” you remind him, taking a different tack in trying to get him to relocate.  He frowns, wrinkles his nose, and then rubs at his face with one hand.

“You’re making me feel old,” General Hux grumbles from behind his palm.

“You are old, sir,” you reply with prompt cheerfulness and sounding like you very much relish the chance to say so.  It’s not strictly true, but you don’t often comment on the gap between General Hux’s age and yours.  It’s something that you find, in all honesty, endlessly funny.

“And you are a child,” he intones with more severity than is probably warranted for the situation.  You shrug his irritation off with a smile.

“I thought you said I was  _ refreshing _ ,” you tease, laughter rippling under your words like water.

“I regret telling you that.”

“No, you don’t, sir,” you say, shifting your weight to your feet and getting up to hover over General Hux with a smile.  He looks up at you for a long moment, at your obvious fondness for him, the total lack of fear or intimidation in your expression, and then he cracks a smile himself.  It has the effect of softening his mouth and warming his eyes, makes him look approachable.

“I don’t,” he confirms, reaching out to pull you back down on top of him and securing both your body heat and the blankets you took with you.  You don’t even pretend to hold out for the hope of his quarters, just drape yourself comfortably over his body and nuzzle your cheek into his chest.  He laughs once, briefly, and runs gentle fingers through your hair.

“Your negotiating is going abysmally, by the way,” he informs you, his voice rumbling through his chest into your cheekbone as much as through the air and into your ears.  There’s a sort of contented purring seated deep in his chest, and the sound of it gives you an unexpected thrill.

“Do you have a suggestion for how I should proceed, sir?” you inquire promptly, though you’re sure the words aren’t quite as well enunciated as they could be.  Pressing your face against someone’s chest makes proper pronunciation difficult, and you don’t see yourself stopping at any point in the immediate future.  At the very least, you don’t plan to.

“ _Generally_ , the idea would be to find something that I want and withhold it until I agree to your demands.”

“I am at a disadvantage there, sir.  You have access to many more resources than I.”

“Then you’ll need to be creative.”

The idea coalesces in the whirling of your head, and you observe it for a moment.  Is it feasible?  Yes, but only because of the very specific circumstances you’re currently in.

It probably won’t work, but at least you’ll be able to say you tried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reader attempts to convince General Hux to go to his room with a blowjob by denying him orgasm until he agrees. It doesn't work. ;)
> 
> Also, fun fact: General Hux is about 12 years older than Reader.
> 
> Anyway! General Hux is highly concerned about consent. It's of paramount importance to him that the Reader actually wants to have sexual relations with him, to the point where he will go out of his way to make sure of it. Funnily enough, his going out of his way to assure himself of the Reader's consent also means that he's very aware of how much he wants the Reader too. Basically, General Hux is all about authenticity in his relationships. The Reader's ability to balance General Hux's humanity and his authority and position are a large part of what attracted General Hux to Reader in the first place.
> 
> I know I skipped the whole song and dance of them first getting together, but I feel like enough other fics do that that it wasn't strictly necessary. That and I don't see them as having a long courtship/interest period. Honestly, probably what happened is Hux declared his intentions and Reader was blindsided by it, but also 100% down.
> 
> I'm considering doing a couple of companion-pieces though, one of them being what happened when Hux did finally declare his intentions and the other being snippets of moments from these chapters from Hux's point of view. Is there any interest in that???
> 
> As always, comments and kudos are appreciated! Copy and paste your favorite part if you like, no commentary necessary if you're not feeling up to it! Or just scream about Hux. I do that a lot. We can do it together!


	7. In Which General Hux Disapproves of Unconsidered Recklessness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which you try to show off, work a little under Captain Phasma, and end up putting a tree to use.
> 
> Trigger Warning: Brief description of gore fairly late in the chapter. It's not overly detailed though, about two sentences.

Planets, you have observed in your short lifetime, have colors.  This particular planet is grey and green.

It’s a strangely lush, vibrant place for having such thick cloud cover and cool temperatures.  It probably has something to do with the fact that it never stops raining.  Precipitation comes down in a steady drizzle with little change.  It’s the sort of weather that will eventually soak through any fabric that has not been thoroughly waterproofed after several hours of standing in it.

You have been standing in it for several hours.  You are not pleased.

Neither is General Hux for that matter, but he gives the appearance of being unmoved by the fact that his heavy coat is dripping onto the grass crushed under his boots.  You, by contrast, are openly scowling at the sky and absolutely do not care what anyone thinks about it.  You are, amazingly, even beyond caring what General Hux thinks about it, which is honestly the miracle of the day considering how much you usually care about what he thinks.  But several hours worth of being cold and wet and without an overcoat will do that to a person, something you know from previous experience.  You recall a particularly unpleasant overnight field exercise at the Academy during which it rained heavily the entire time, wrinkle your nose at remembering not having even a single dry sock.

Your moodiness actually has less to do with the rain than being forced to merely stand in it and endure the steady downpour.  It does not help that you can distantly hear the sounds of a skirmish.  It’s just a small Resistance outpost, not something particularly worth the First Order’s time, and there’s really no need for General Hux to be here either.  He’s here because it does troops good to see their commanders come down from on high to keep an eye on the occasional fight once in awhile; it encourages both courage and fear, stokes ambition.  The added benefit of potentially useful information coming into the First Order’s possession through a prisoner or two is just icing on the proverbial cake, and everyone needs a little cake sometimes as far as you’re concerned.

You happen to very much like cake.

And as if that’s not enough, the planet has several useful ores and minerals, one of which is quite rare, a wide variety of edible flora, and three species of domesticable (and therefore edible) fauna.  While you’re personally looking forward to the potential additions to the rotation of meals in the officer’s mess at Starkiller, the situation is a reminder that General Hux excels at logistics to the point of absurdity.  You glance over at your superior officer, letting yourself admire, if only for a moment, how utterly brilliant he is.  It’s entirely in keeping with his character to get so much more than just a Resistance outpost from a lone planet.

His fingers twitch as you watch him, and you wonder whether he wishes he had a long-range rifle and scope.  His record shot at the Imperial Academy still stands even now, and you find yourself smiling lightly.  You would love to see him shoot, to see him sprawled over the ground or tucked into a sniper’s nest with the butt of a rifle snuggled into his shoulder.  You indulge the thought further, focusing on the way he would breathe, staring through the scope, focused intently on his target while his spotter whispered wind speeds and distances to him.  The tension in his shoulders as he adjusted the rifle by excruciating, split-hair degrees.  You add a touch of insolence to your superior officer by including his command cap, tilted far back on his head so that the visor doesn’t interfere with his work.

“Sir, one of the Resistance stationed at the outpost appears to have slipped by us.”  Captain Phasma’s voice comes through clearly on communications, breaking your train of thought.  Your muscles tighten, your senses pushed into high alert at this news, instantly scanning the immediate area.  You sense more than see General Hux do the same.

“Your recommendation, Captain?” he asks, crisp and cool and collected.  You can feel the tension in the air, but he shows no evidence of it, remains as unruffled as ever.  You aspire to his level of self-control, though you’re fairly certain you have a long way to go before you can achieve it.

“We can handle it, but it may take a few minutes and the man may be heading in your direction.  I would advise you and your aide be alert, sir,” she answers, her voice flat though there’s a sharp edge to the words that suggests annoyance.  You’re primed to notice vocal cues of irritation now, having spent so much time around General Hux who is frequently annoyed.

“I can try to intercept him, sir,” you offer instantly, and you probably shouldn’t be quite so eager considering the look General Hux levels at you.  You manage to keep yourself from bouncing on your toes at the prospect of action.  Your specialty may be hand to hand combat, but you have more than decent marks when it comes to close quarters combat and well above standard scores in proficiency with your sidearm.  You should easily be able to handle a single escapee.

You have rarely felt so much like a leashed predator as you do in this moment.

You watch General Hux with wide, hopeful eyes, silently begging for him to accept your offer.  You want to hunt this noncompliant prisoner-to-be down, want to wrangle him into submission, and most of all, you want to lay him out like the prey he is in front of your master.  You’ve done something similar before, though that ended rather differently than you thought it would.  General Hux had been concerned then about you losing yourself in your anger, but this is a new situation, and perhaps this time he’ll praise you.  If he’ll let you go, that is.

“Make your preparations, Lieutenant,” he says after a moment of deliberation, and then turns away from you.  You don’t wait even a second as you spring away toward the shuttle, covering ground on light, quick feet.  Excitement flashes through your body like lightning as you step into the vehicle, unbuckling the belt around your waist and tossing it onto the seat you rode down to the planet on.  You shed your tunic, fold it neatly and drop the bundle of fabric onto your seat atop your belt.  You’ve turned back toward the door of the shuttle before it hits, reaching down to adjust the blaster at your hip, rocking it forward and backward to loosen it for a quick, easy draw.  

You step out of the vehicle, rolling out your shoulders as the rain starts falling on your head again, rolling up the sleeves of your shirt to cuff them messily.  You head immediately for General Hux who watches you with some unidentifiable glint in his eyes.  It might be envy, the wish that he could do what you’re about to do, but the truth of the matter is that he’s too important, too valuable, too high ranked to be running around in trees chasing the Resistance to ground.  As a lieutenant, you’re young and easily replaced, no matter General Hux’s personal feelings on the matter, and thus expendable.  Running around in an unfamiliar forest on the ground with a sidearm chasing down Resistance should, and always will, fall to you.

There is also the matter of the fact that he trust you, trusts your competence, trusts you to be his right hand when he cannot act himself.  It’s with this thought that you snap out a salute, regretting that, in a way, you’re supposed to be the last line of defence between him and potential threats, but you’re having to leave.  If all goes as expected, then you’ll intercept the only potential threat before it reaches this meadow between the trees, long before it can become a real threat to the General.

“Is it necessary to leave behind the tunic?” he asks, sounding faintly annoyed.  He dislikes your being out of uniform, but you’re willing to wager a number of things that he also dislikes the idea of you running around in your now-transparent regulation shirt.  The ash grey fabric is clinging to your skin, sticking, but the shirt has enough give that it doesn’t distract you when you move.  Your tunic, though much warmer, is made of a thicker, stiffer cloth.

“It restricts range of motion in my shoulders, sir,” you answer, putting the vocal equivalent of a shrug into the words.  He still looks mildly displeased, but there’s also something appreciative in the way his eyes sweep over you.

“Good hunting, Lieutenant,” he intones with a tight, graceful nod, and as always, his approval makes your heart leap in your chest.

“Thank you, sir,” you respond, and the grin curving your mouth is feral, hungry.

“Captain, my aide has volunteered to find your runaway,” General Hux tells Captain Phasma over the communications channel, apparently undisturbed by your sudden thirst for blood.  Perhaps he’s not, maybe he knew about this part of you after those sparring sessions, after your apprehension of that would-be assassin.  It would only make sense that he would know after all of that, and still he’s kept you by his side.  Either he factors it into what he allows you to handle or he values this trait enough to keep you at his side, likely both.  You would love to know the reasons, but now is not the time to ask, not while your chain of command is shifting.

“Roger that, sir.  Lieutenant?”  Captain Phasma’s voice is all business as it feeds directly into your earpiece.

“Reporting, ma’am,” you say as you turn away from General Hux to address your temporary commanding officer.  You head toward the treeline, lengthening your stride to cover the ground faster, feeling the earth under the grass compressing under your weight.  It’s an interesting detail to note, but a necessary one too: if not for the grass, you would be walking through the mud.  Mud, you have had occasion to find out, is slippery and sticky.  Mud means a lot of time spent cleaning your uniform and polishing your boots.  It also means that the footing is bad, takes away one of your major advantages in close quarters combat, namely your agility.  Being able to turn on a shoulder patch is an excellent ability, but if you slip on the turn, it will just leave you vulnerable.

“Take him alive if you can, if not, bring him down,” she orders, the words clipped and allowing no argument.

“Roger that, ma’am,” you respond promptly, and then listen carefully as she rattles off information regarding the man’s last known location, which direction he was headed in, how far he might have gotten, and what he was wearing.  He could be closer to you and General Hux than you initially thought, and this spurs you more quickly into the trees.

The meadow had a sweetness to its scent, something light and green and almost floral.  The forest has a much heavier flavor, earthier with mosses and lichens and fungi.  There’s a stink of something, somewhere, decomposing, but it’s faint and far off.  Your nose twitches at the smells, so different from the sharp mix of metal and snow you've grown familiar with at Starkiller.  You miss Starkiller, a fact that suggests that maybe it’s your home now, and you set this bit of information aside to think on more deeply later.

“If you run into problems, Lieutenant, I can assist,” General Hux’s voice murmurs through your earpiece, louder than the muted patter of rain on the trees overhead.  It breaks off your dangerously wandering thoughts, brings you back to the present and awareness.  You freeze and sweep the immediate area with your eyes, see nothing, and then proceed forward a little more cautiously.  You step carefully through the undergrowth, long since fallen leaves softening your footfalls while you avoid any fallen tree limbs.

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, sir,” you answer quietly, keeping your tone light and concealing your resolve to make your hope happen.  You shouldn’t need help to take down one man, and General Hux should be able to stay far out of harm’s way.  Period.  

You draw your blaster, hold it in the low ready position as you slink from the shelter of one tree to another along the escaped Resistance member’s projected trajectory.  Your eyes adjust to the shades of gray, white, and brown tree bark around you, the different colors of green foliage in the brush, the occasional pop of pale lavender and dark golden flowers dusting the ground here and there.  Certainly nothing around you looks like the Resistance member’s clothing, so you head deeper into the trees, noting which side of the trunks the moss is growing on.

It would be embarrassing if you got lost and someone had to guide you out, worse still if someone had to come get you.

General Hux would probably come get you himself, just to make a point of it, and you wrinkle your nose at the thought.  You would prefer to avoid a training exercise in Starkiller’s forests, even as much as you love the snow and don’t mind navigation work.  You exhale long and slow through your nose as you sidle up to a tree, ducking behind a bush and pausing to peer through the leaves.  You relax your vision just slightly, watching for movement or a silhouette rather than a person.  The cover of the foliage should break up your own figure enough that the disadvantage of your light shirt shouldn’t-

Two blaster shots scream by you, the second close enough for you to feel the warmth of the charge on your shoulder.  You drop unceremoniously into the undergrowth, rolling and tumbling over the ground, keeping yourself going for a few turns as you try to keep your bearings, try to understand where the shots came from.  You stay on the ground, pulse pounding loud in your ears as you hold your breath, listening for-

The footsteps are as loud as your heartbeat, and you’re able to pinpoint them as you shift to get your feet underneath you.  The man is getting closer, crashing through the brush, and you don’t dare risk him getting that much closer as you pop up from the ground and try to catch him by surprise.  He spins, staring for a moment too long as you get your blaster up, pointing it at him and holding his stare.  His hair is dark, matted down to his forehead with sweat, his eyes are dark too, so wide that the whites show on all sides, wild.  

“Surrender,” you bark, surprised you’re not breathless with all the adrenaline humming in your veins, but you’ve barely finished the word before he lifts his blaster and tries to get off another shot at you.  You throw yourself to the side, twisting and firing your blaster as you do.  Your shot sails past the man, but at least it forces him to duck his head.  You hit the ground, translate the momentum into another roll and are back on your feet.  You sprint _toward_ your prey this time, closing the space between you rapidly, dodging aside when he fires at you again.  This time, you get off a slightly better aimed shot at him, and he goes down without even a sound.  

You stop, breathing hard and harsh through your open mouth as you wait for him to come up again, but long seconds pass by and nothing happens.  You listen intently, trying to hear if he’s crawling away through the leaves, but there is only the gentle sound of the rain.  You slink in the general direction of where he should be, blaster held at low-ready, hoping that the man is just knocked out and not dead.  Dead is okay, but alive would be preferable.

“Show yourself,” you call, still wary that the man might rise from the ground who-knows-where and catch you by surprise.  If he does, given your exchange until now, he’ll probably hit you.  You can’t think of a more ignominious end to your own life than getting killed for being overeager and trying to show off for your superior officer.

Because that’s what this is, you realize in retrospect.  It’s you trying to show off for General Hux.

You feel suddenly very young and very foolish, but it doesn’t last long as you almost step on the body of the man you’ve been chasing.  You train your blaster on him reflexively, and then lower it as you examine him, mouth twisting.  You’d thought you had hit him in the chest, which would have been debilitating and potentially deadly, but not immediately life-ending.  As it turns out, his throat and chin took the brunt of the blast, his neck laid open and flesh seared well up into his skull.  The upper part of his head is completely intact, his eyes wide and vacant.  All in all, it’s not a pretty picture.

“Captain,” you start, and then pause as you consider how to phrase it, “Target was engaged.  He resisted, and I acted in self-defense.”

“Dead or alive?” Captain Phasma asks, cutting straight to the chase.

“Dead, ma’am,” you mutter, grimacing as you turn away from the body.  It’s not the death or the killing that bothers you, rather, it’s the failure that the corpse represents.  Strictly, you guess, it’s not really a failure.  The orders were dead or alive, but alive was the preferred outcome and it is not what you have achieved.

“Shame.  We’ve the others, so it’s no great loss,” Phasma murmurs with the verbal equivalent of a shrug.

“Roger that, ma’am,” you respond tonelessly, not wanting to dwell on it.

“Well done,” General Hux says from behind you, and you whirl around in surprise, on the verge of whipping your blaster up.  He pauses, waits for you to confirm that it is indeed him and that he is alone, and you sigh deeply and holster your weapon at your hip.

“I was under the impression that you were going to stay close to the shuttle, sir,” you say pointedly, giving him a shrewd look that comes very close to insubordination.  At least there’s no one to see here in the trees, and you’re hoping for leniency based on that.

“I did say that I could assist,” he answers, looking you over with a critical eye.  You suddenly have enough presence of mind to feel self-conscious, glancing down at yourself.  Your shirt sleeve is torn from bicep to tricep on one side, half of the tail pulled from the clips of your shirt stays and the waistband of your trousers.  You are positively riddled with grass stains and there’s a fair amount of dirt still sticking to the wet fabric.

“I thought you might wait until I asked for assistance, sir,” you say, resorting to politesse as you begin brushing away the dirt, grass, and leaves sticking to you.

“That would likely have been too late,” he remarks, his voice taking on a new degree of intensity.

“That’s probably true,” you admit, though with less apparent sheepishness than is likely really appropriate as you look up, anxious to see if he’s disappointed in you.

“I don’t approve of unconsidered recklessness, Lieutenant,” he says, approaching you at a steady pace.  It takes you a moment to find the proper word for what he’s doing: _stalking_.  His eyes are intense, dark and burning, and you are at a loss for what to say in the face of something that looks almost like anger rather than mere disapproval.

It’s because you’re still scrambling to find some kind of response that you’re not prepared for him to pin your back to a tree you forgot was there.  You’re even less prepared when his mouth finds yours, hot and demanding, teeth scraping over your lip.  His hands burn against your skin, even through the thin fabric of your shirt and the leather of his gloves, one gripping your shoulder and the other on your hip, both hard enough to bruise.  He tilts your pelvis into his, positioning your body precisely, his mouth overwhelming, his hands relentless.

For a heartbeat, you can’t remember how to breathe and then your fingers are scrabbling frantically at his uniform.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why, yes, I do subscribe to Sniper!Hux Headcanons Weekly, thanks. (No, I have no idea how this chapter got so long, thanks again.)
> 
> Also don't ask me about timelines, I have no idea what's going on. I don't think they were called the Resistance yet, and since this is all supposed to be pre-TFA... Idk, I get a little lost in the canon and have been a wee bit lazy about getting myself a proper map.
> 
> So at least a few people have seemed pretty excited about companion pieces to this fic! Which is really exciting because I really want to do them. I also wanted to check in with readers about the possibility about another companion piece. Basically it would be "5 Might Have Beens and 1 Was", aka 5 totally different directions/AUs I considered while I was plotting/writing this fic and 1 bonus chapter that's canon (as it were) for Crash Course. Interest? Yea? Nay? Tell me what you think in the comments.
> 
> Or copy and paste your favorite line for this chapter. Or scream about how hot Hux would be sniping shit because I am 100% about that life.


	8. In Which General Hux Gives An Unsatisfying Answer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which you are invited into General Hux's quarters for the first time.

You watch General Hux with a critical eye, lips pursed with concern.  His eyes have been narrowed for nearly an hour now, and you know for a fact that nothing too concerning should have crossed his desk today.  Kylo Ren is away on some mission or other currently, so he’s not the cause of General Hux’s displeasure either.  You continue watching your superior officer, continue trying to think what could cause him to look so stressed, and then he raises a hand to his brow.  He presses his fingers just above his eyebrows, and it has the effect of shading his eyes from the overhead light.  The crease between his eyebrows smooths just a little, and then the realization hits you like an avalanche.

“Lights, fifty percent,” you command quietly, and the room immediately dims in response.  General Hux’s eyes dart from the report he’s reading and fix on you, one eyebrow arching.  The expression is a silent question that demands an answer.

“You have a migraine, sir,” you tell him promptly, and he goes very, very still, his eyes narrowing still further as he watches you carefully.  

“And how would you know that?” he asks, careful to keep his voice flat and toneless as he leans back in his chair, steepling his fingers in front of his chest.  The only hint at his continued discomfort is the tightness around his eyes, and that could easily be mistaken for irritation.

“You’ve been squinting for an hour, and when you put your hand against your face just now, it shaded your eyes and seemed to help,” you inform him without hiding any of your concern.  You lean forward, resting your forearms against the edge of your desk, “There’s nothing that requires your immediate attention, and there’s unlikely to be for the rest of the day.  It wouldn’t hurt for you to take off a little early.”

He stares at you, and it’s difficult to discern whether he’s considering what you said, his options, or you.  He seems surprised that you caught on to the fact that he’s in pain, and perhaps even more surprised that you were able to figure out exactly what kind of pain.  You wonder how often he misjudges or underestimates you, wonder who understands who better in your dual relationships, both professional and personal.  You had always assumed that he understood you better, that you were transparent to him, as easy to see through as the transparisteel of the  _ Finalizer _ ’s viewing bays.  Maybe he thought that too, and perhaps that’s why the two of you are watching each other so closely now, your attention tempered with care and concern, his blank and sharp.

“If there’s nothing that requires my immediate attention, then there’s nothing that requires yours either,” he murmurs softly over his fingertips, “Do you feel as if you would benefit from an evening off duty?”  You blink, your head tilting as you process his offer.  You’ve never asked for any kind of leave, never even thought to ask.  Why would you when it meant being near him the whole day through?  Though the two of you compartmentalize the aspects of your relationship, there’s still places where they mix, and this is one of them.  You might perform your duties with all the professionalism at your disposal, but the satisfaction you derive from serving and being near General Hux is purely personal.

“That depends,” you mumble as you drop your eyes, “Very much on what you would like me to do.”  You’re torn between wanting to go the extra mile and working through the evening anyway or possibly spending the evening with him.  More likely, you’d spend the evening alone, but you like to leave yourself a little wiggle room considering what might be allowed.

“Log us both as off-duty then,” he sighs, closing his eyes and bending his head to press at the bridge of his nose with his fingertips as he issues his commands, “And walk back to quarters with me.”

“Yes, sir,” you respond immediately, closing out the windows on your screen and opening up the logs.  You change General Hux’s status first, then your own, double checking that the correct times have been logged while General Hux collects his command cap and greatcoat.  He slings the coat over his shoulders, but doesn’t put on the cap.  He’s already at the door by the time you’re rising from the desk, and you grab your own coat and hurry out the door after him.  

You trail after him down the hall of the administrative building, as decorum and your position demand, in silence.  You make it a point to overtake General Hux at the door, opening it for him, and he mutters distracted gratitude as he passes into the bitter, snowy cold outside.  An icy wind stings any and all exposed skin, but you pause on the threshold as the door closes behind you when your commanding officer does.  He stands, coat on and eyes closed, seeming to absorb the ambient cold, and you wonder if he’s letting the freezing temperatures function like an atmospheric ice pack.  It looks as if he’s merely enjoying the frosty air, as if he were somehow born a creature of ice in spite of his fiery hair, and you catch yourself smiling at both the whimsicality of the thought and the well-maintained illusion that General Hux is somehow more than human.

You extract your gloves and cap from the pockets of your overcoat, pull the gloves over your hands and the cap into its proper place while you wait for General Hux to continue on towards the Officers’ Quarters.  It’s rare for him to take a moment to himself in this way, and you refuse to rush him though shift your weight from foot to foot in the snow as the minutes drag on in silence.  Still, it’s not long before General Hux exhales a long plume of steam that the wind whisks away and begins making his way through the snow with the unerring precision of someone accustomed to walking this path.  You follow about two steps behind, stepping in his footprints and making a game out of it.  His stride is longer than yours because his legs are longer, but not enough for it to be truly uncomfortable matching his stride.

When you reach the entrance to quarters, you again dart past him to get the door.  He doesn’t say anything this time, but the lack of acknowledgement doesn’t bother you.  If he thanked you for every door you opened for him, he would probably have to thank you some twenty times a day, and that wouldn’t do.  Appearances are important, and he can’t seem too beholden to his aide, even if it seems like nobody's watching.  There’s always someone watching, and it pays to maintain professionalism for the rest of the base.  They can whisper all they want, but they won’t get any definitive proof of your personal relationship, not that anyone would dare confront General Hux about it.

The soles of your boots squeak with the remnants of moisture from outside on the polished duracrete of the hallway.  You take your customary position, back of General Hux’s left shoulder, as the two of you trace the familiar route to your quarters.  His coattails drift gently behind him, dusted with the glittering remains of half-melted snowflakes so that the wool seems to shimmer under the lights.  You resist the urge to try and wipe it away with your gloved hands, knowing that he prefers to appear as pristine as if his clothes were fresh from the laundry, but suspect that he would be more annoyed at having to stop when both your quarters are just around the corner.

“Enjoy your evening, Lieutenant,” he grunts, reaching up to rub at his temples again with one gloved hand as he passes your door.  You hesitate in front of it as you try to come up with a response, but when you look over at him, you can’t muster a farewell of any kind.  He senses you watching him, squints at you from under his palm in front of his own door, waits for you to speak.

“Will you be alright, sir?” you ask finally, unable to help yourself anymore.

“I’ve dealt with migraines before,” he responds tersely, the words clipped.  You don’t take his irritation personally, though it stings a little as you shrug it off.

“I know.”  You watch as his hand drops, as he looks back at you, his expression partly pained, but otherwise unreadable.  You wonder if your concern is showing, if he can see the sympathy in you, figure that probably he can which is why he’s still here in the hallway, some three paces away.

“I suppose it doesn’t matter much anymore, trying to keep it secret.  It’s what they all think anyway,” he grumbles as he turns away, opening the door to his quarters and passing through before you hear, “Come in before I change my mind.”

You pull in a sharp breath and then spring over the space between your door and his in a single bound.  You make it through the door before it closes, and he’s already hanging up his coat and command cap while you get your first impressions of his private space.  It’s spacious and well-kept, neat and clean and organized, but impersonal.  There are a few printed books stacked on the coffee table in front of the small sofa, spines turned and displayed so that they can be seen from the door, but nothing else to suggest anything about the occupant.  The books and their titles speak volumes about their owner, but only about two facets of his character.

“Make yourself comfortable,” General Hux says to satisfy the customs of hospitality, pulling off his gloves and stowing them away in the pocket of his coat.  This small detail makes a smile tug on one side of your lips, recognizing it as a practice that you yourself engage in because it is the easiest and most foolproof way of making sure that you don’t forget your gloves.

“Sir,” you respond, shrugging off your own greatcoat, tucking your gloves into one pocket and your command cap in the other.  General Hux strides away to the tiny kitchen, flatly commanding the lights to forty percent while he takes a glass down from a cabinet and fills it with water.  You drift to the coatrack in his wake, hanging up your coat, and then after a pause, unbuckling your belt and draping that over the collar of your coat.  You can feel your commanding officer’s eyes on you as you unhook your tunic and shrug that off too, leaving you in your shirtsleeves and trousers.

“Do you despise your tunic so much?” he asks dryly, sipping at his glass of water, and you laugh quietly.

“Maybe it seems like it, but no,” you tell him, offering him a smile as you carefully hang your tunic over both coat and belt.  It slips, threatens to fall, and then you adjust it so that it will stay put.  Suddenly, you’re at a loss for what to do, unsure of what he has in mind, what his plan is and what he expects.  As adaptable as General Hux is, you would rather not have to make him adjust himself to you too much, not today, not with his migraine hanging over you both.

“Come here,” he commands, gesturing sharply with one pale hand when you look to him.  He crosses the room to his impeccably made bed (it’s honestly impossible to tell whether a droid of General Hux did it) and you follow, curious and obedient.  He waves an impatient hand at the head of the bed, saying briefly, “Sit.”

“Woof,” you murmur as you sit on the edge of the mattress, one pillow shifting as the surface dips slightly under your weight.  You look up at him, about to ask if you should take off your boots and end up holding your breath as General Hux lowers himself onto the bed and lays his head in your lap.  His back arches slightly as he stretches across the mattress, leaving his still-booted feet hanging off the edge.  He doesn’t even look at your face through the process, only closes his eyes and sighs heavily, his exhalation long enough and strong enough to feel on your face.  A smile quirks the corner of your mouth as you start breathing again, settling one hand tentatively on his chest and drawing the fingers of your other hand through his hair.  It’s soft under your fingers and slightly sticky with product, but the way he sighs again encourages you to keep running your fingers through his hair, scratching gently at his scalp with your nails.

The significance of being let into his sanctuary for the first time today is not lost on you, regardless of the circumstances.  It’s a gesture of trust, and you appreciate it quietly, letting this new dimension of relationship and responsibility settle over your shoulders like a well-earned cloak as you think a little on your relationship.  There are so very few things you would not do for him, partly because disobeying a superior officer is a one-way ticket to reconditioning, but mostly because he means more to you than you could have ever anticipated.

“Thank you for staying,” General Hux mumbles with uncharacteristic laziness, breaking through your reflections, and you glance down at him with a smile.  His eyes are still closed, but fondness warms your heart as you continue combing your fingers through his hair.

“Of course, sir,” you answer because there’s really nothing else to say.

“If we’ve come this far, you might as well call me Brendol.”

“Oh,” you say, the exclamation more exhalation than it is actual vocalization.

“And now you have something to call me besides ‘sir’.”  The smile curving his mouth now is coy and sly, and you’re glad that his eyes are still closed so that he can’t see the way your own widen.  You recover yourself and click your tongue as if in admonishment.

“That assumes you leave me coherent enough to string two syllables together.  You’ll notice ‘sir’ is only one syllable,  _ sir _ .”  

“Have a care for a sick man,” he says, though he’s clearly not that serious since he follows it up with a chuckle, and you have to resist the urge to roll your eyes.

“You’re clearly not sick enough if you can comment on what I choose to call you in bed,” you tell him tartly, and his eyes open, brilliantly blue-green under the red-gold frames of his lashes, the pupils wide in the dimness.  Your heart skips a beat as you stare down into his eyes, your fingers frozen in his hair.

“We’re in bed now,” he murmurs, though it sounds more like the purr of the cat that has just caught the canary and is intent on eating said bird.

“We’re not currently engaging in bed _ sport _ .  That’s a bit of a key difference,” you reply, lifting your eyebrows significantly.  If that’s what he wants, you’re not opposed, but you hadn’t thought he would be up for anything of the kind considering the circumstances.  Were you mistaken?

“I suppose it is, isn’t it?” he responds, sighing and closing his eyes again.  Belatedly, you go back to carding your fingers through his hair, internally disappointed with yourself for giving your reaction away so easily.  It’s not a mistake that he would have made, of that you’re sure.

“This isn’t making your headache worse?” you inquire, concern making you cautious about over-engaging him when perhaps he would rather rest in silence.

“No, but it’s preventing me from getting too bored,” he drawls candidly, and you have to cover your mouth as you try to stifle your laughter.  A smile of his own plays at the corners of his mouth, as if he’s pleased at having been able to make you laugh.

“Ah, well, boredom certainly won’t help you feel any better,” you manage to remark after a moment, amusement still suffusing your tone with lighthearted warmth.

“It won’t.  This fact is, unfortunately, lost on the medical staff.  There’s nothing more boring than trying to fall asleep,” he sighs, lifting both his hands helplessly as he shrugs.

“And then you get on your datapad and do more work, don’t you?” you say disapprovingly, already knowing the answer, “You know the screen’s light and the stress of working probably don’t help you.”

“They don’t, but I won’t sit there twiddling my thumbs.”

“No, of course not.”

“What do you suggest?”

“A book,” you answer, meaningfully eyeing the five perched on his coffee table, “You can always have me fetch you something too.”

“And who would be there reminding them all that my absence is temporary if you’re running around fetching things for me?” he retorts, grinning at the reminder that his command staff are afraid of you.  They might outrank you, but being the closest of them to General Hux, they are forced to take you seriously, very delicately implied threats included.  General Hux finds practical demonstrations of the situation immensely entertaining, enough that in the privacy of his office, he allows himself to laugh and even slap you on the back sometimes.

“What’s the last book you read?” you press, refusing to let him change the subject.

“A collection of- ” he starts, and then pauses before he flicks his fingers at the nightstand closest to you, “The datapad in the drawer has a variety of literature on it.  Pick something to read aloud, if you would.”

You withdraw your hand from his hair because it’s the closest to the nightstand, wiping your fingertips along your thigh to get most of the product residue off, and then slide open the drawer.  You lift the datapad out, shutting the drawer with a deft twist of your wrist, pressing your fingers to the screen.  The display lights up, but doesn’t unlock for you, and you take a moment to try and discern whether or not you expected it to.  There’s no reason why it should, and using official fingerprint records for personal items would violate a couple of regulations, but still you find yourself slightly disappointed though you shrug it off.

“You’ll need to unlock it, sir,” you say, resting the datapad on his chest, and he squints at the display, pressing his thumb to one corner.  It registers his touch and his fingerprint, chimes cheerfully as it unlocks.  You take possession of the item after that, finding and opening a commonly used reading application.  It takes a moment to load, and then it shows a long, long list of titles and authors, enough to fill a  _ library _ .  You suck in a breath at the daunting amount of literature, scrolling and trying to find something that you’ll be able to understand as much as read.  Most of it is textbooks: physics and history, systems theory and engineering, psychology and mathematics.  There are more than a few biographies scattered in and among them, and it’s likely that one of these will be your best bet, but you see no ‘collection’ of anything.

“I admire your dedication to educating yourself, sir,” is your comment as you continue scrolling through the available books.

“Thank you,” is General Hux’s brief response.

“Hmmm, let’s-  Oh,“ you murmur, staring at the title on the screen.  Sitting in the middle of a mass of nonfiction is an author that you recognize, a title that echoes what General Hux said only moments ago.   _ A collection _ , he had said.  Given this is the only ‘collection’ of anything on the list you’ve seen yet, it seems a safe guess that this is what he was referring to.

“Something wrong?” he asks from your lap, behind the datapad so that you can’t see his face.  His tone sounds almost as concerned as yours did earlier when you were standing in the hall, when he was debating whether to let you into his personal space.

“I’m surprised to see a volume of poetry here.  Everything else is histories and biographies and textbooks.”  You neglect to mention that  _ this _ particular, classical poet is your favorite, someone you quote frequently when you feel it’s appropriate to do so.  You shift the datapad aside to look at his face, cocking your head in your curiosity.

“Is it so surprising?” he asks, sweet and strangely gentle as he looks up at you in a way that makes your heart do a hard double-beat against your ribs.

“Maybe not,” you mumble, feeling your face grow warm though you have no idea if you’re blushing or not.  Usually, the answer to that question is no, but it might be different today as General Hux lifts a hand to your face, running the knuckle of his index finger from your cheekbone to your jaw.  You feel your face soften, your lips parting as you hold his steady gaze.

“You needn’t look so surprised every time I show you a bit of affection,” he tells you quietly, letting his touch linger.

“I don’t mean to,” you mumble, averting your eyes quickly and looking to the datapad for a distraction, feeling strangely vulnerable.  The datapad, unfortunately, seems like the wrong place to put your attention, and you find yourself casting around the room, looking for something to focus on.

“Then what do you mean?” he inquires as he draws back his hand, rests it on his stomach as he waits for you answer.

“I thought you wanted me to read to you,” you say, feinting, and you  _ sound _ distracted, though not quite panicked.  Not yet at least, though you can feel yourself sliding in that direction as time goes on and sense the weight of General Hux’s most patient stare leveled unwaveringly on your face.

“After you answer me.”

“I decline."

“I insist.”

“Humor me.”

“Not this time.”

And then it’s a stalemate.  You struggle with wanting to please him with the answer he so obviously wants and wanting to keep your complicated, un-itemized feelings to yourself.  There’s a question lingering under your tongue that you don’t know how to ask, mostly because it hasn’t resolved itself into anything resembling words yet.  If there is a word, it’s  _ why? _  But there’s nothing to follow that ‘why’ and so there’s nothing to ask. 

Your eyes drop to his, find him still waiting, wonder who will win this contest.  It would be easy if he was irritated, you would simply hold your ground until he cooled off a little, but this look that you can only describe as  _ soulful _ in its softness is something you have no experience with and, consequently, no idea how to deal with.  Or at the very least, you’ve been on the  _ giving _ end of that look, but never on the  _ receiving _ end, and being on the receiving end is one of the most unsettling experiences you’ve had to date.  It might even equal that awkward, terrifying encounter with Kylo Ren.

“It’s just…” you pause and look away, trying to think, hating that your discomfort has pushed you into breaking the stalemate, almost desperate to find something, anything to say that will make General Hux stop looking at you like  _ that _ .  Finally you settle on a relatively neutral, “This isn’t where I thought I would be when you took me straight from the Academy after graduation.”

“I didn’t plan on this, no, but that’s not what you’re trying to ask me,” he says, his voice firm and considered.  You reluctantly stop staring at the empty surface of his nightstand and look down at him again.  You can feel your mouth twisting, even frowning a little, but he seems unperturbed by this, and maybe that’s because this seems to be something he’s been thinking of himself for a while.  It irks you that he seems to understand this thing you can’t pin down better than you do, assuming it is, in fact, the same thing that you’ve been thinking about, this unasked question of yours he’s been trying to answer.

“What am I trying to ask then?” you grouse, trying not to grit your teeth in irritation that he doesn’t deserve to be the focus of.  It’s not his fault that you’re annoyed that you have no idea what this thing that’s been nagging at you for months is.

“Why I show every sign of being attached when you’re a decade younger than I am, have no power, no connections, and no money,” he says very simply, stunning you into silence so profound that your mouth drops open as you fish for something, anything at all, to say and find nothing.  He watches you for a moment before a little grin creeps across his face, “Don’t over think it.”

“Don’t over think the answer?  Or don’t over think my question?” you demand sharply, though you feel immediate regret when he winces at the explosive and sudden increase in volume.  Mentally, you chastise yourself for not maintaining awareness of General Hux’s migraine, then find that this is self-reminder is an excellent foundation for pulling the shreds of your composure together into something serviceable.

He sighs and then murmurs, “Both.”  

“I don’t find the ‘I just do’ version of your answer very satisfying,” you inform him pointedly, though you keep your voice down to avoid causing him any more discomfort.

“I can elaborate for you on another day,” he promises serenely, closing his eyes, apparently satisfied with the resolution of this conversation.  At a loss for what else to do at this juncture, you pick up the datapad to find the screen has gone dark while the two of you were talking.  

It takes all your self-control not to hurl the object across the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here. Take it. Take this massive beast of FLUFF and SNARK off my hands. I'm not sure what happened with this or how well the characterizations were maintained. Hux gets a little soft, Reader gets a little snippy, neither of them really has any idea what they're doing because honestly Hux is too much of a smart-ass know-it-all and Reader is uncomfortable with receiving emotional intimacy.
> 
> I AM LESS DEAD, COMMENTARY AHOY:  
> So yeah! My Hux suffers from migraines, but because he _generally_ works through them, no one even knows. Reader is with him all the time though and sees all the signs and is more than capable of putting two and two together to get four. But other than that, yeah, two big things this chapter: General Hux basically throwing his hands in the air and giving up on attempting to maintain plausible deniability that he and Reader have a personal relationship and General Hux inviting Reader into his personal domain. 
> 
> I think we can all agree that appearances are definitely something General Hux prioritizes, but as far as being invited into his quarters, that's a big deal for him. My Hux is an only child, so he has a predisposition to being possessive about his personal things. At the Academy, however, he was allowed very, very few personal items and always had roommates. When he graduated and entered the Order, he continued to have roommates up until he was promoted to Captain, and during that time he was very proud of having no personal items in his quarters. Once he was no longer sharing rooms, he began to let himself collect a few things. (The books on his coffee table, the personal datapad he keeps in his nightstand, usually two bottles of alcohol, roughly a carton of cigarettes, probably some lube and a few knives and a couple sets of brass knuckles, one of which is probably spiked. A lot of this stuff is just never seen though because he stows most of it away in drawers and other storage spaces.)
> 
> Anyway, the point is that General Hux is both possessive and protective of things that are his, especially his personal space, and letting you into his living space is a _major deal_.
> 
> Also I hope y'all like sass because the next chapter, as far as I can tell, is turning out to be _sass-tastic_. Sometimes I post snippets of dialogue on [my tumblr](http://magpieminx.tumblr.com) (Come visit?) under [my personal text post tag](http://magpieminx.tumblr.com/tagged/texts-from-yours-truly). Or just enjoy the [Hux tag](http://magpieminx.tumblr.com/tagged/gingersnap).
> 
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated! Also a shout out to people who have left comments so far! I'm sorry that I don't always answer and not quickly when I do, but everyone's been so nice, I love you guys, I really do. ;u;


	9. In Which General Hux Accuses You of Being A Smart-Arse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which your dinner is completely interrupted.

You shovel food into your mouth in short, fast bites, feeling half-starved in the wake of an overnight exercise on the Starkiller’s unforgiving tundra.  You were issued rations for the duration of the exercise, three meals total, but nothing compares to fresh, hot food.  You take a moment to savor a slice of a starchy tuber smothered in some kind of creamy sauce and revel in the downright luxurious flavor that lingers on your tongue as you chew.  It’s much better than the tasteless thing you nibbled on while nestled in the branches of a fragrant pine tree, the smell of which still lingers in your hair.  It’s simple fact that rations are always either tasteless or over spiced and have the texture of wet paper or hardwood with no in between.

“Your scores for this exercise were impressive,” General Hux comments from behind his desk, and your head jerks up from the food that’s been holding your attention, startled by the reminder that someone else is in the room.

“Thank you?” you say, scrambling to recover from your surprise, and General Hux looks vaguely amused as he settles back in his chair, lacing his fingers together in front of his chest.  There’s something about the intensity of his attention that puts you on alert, unsure of whether this might be because he’s missed you for the past day and a half or whether he’s about to spring some unanticipated task on you when you’re technically not on duty.  Given General Hux’s nature, you would put money on the latter and mentally begin preparing yourself to do it because it’s not as if you didn’t come to the office to pick up the last couple hours of your usual responsibilities.  You can eat and write memos or read reports at the same time, thank you very much, and then afterwards you can take care of-

“Captain Phasma says it’s  _ suspiciously _ impressive,” he goes on, and you blink at him as if you can’t comprehend this statement before you frown and shrug, popping another bite into your mouth, chewing and swallowing without answering.  Answering the unspoken question at the end of that statement would be a mistake because there are only two options: lie or tell the truth.  Lying to a superior officer who, when off-duty, is your- your something, you have no idea what to label him because ‘boyfriend’ is clearly out of the question, ‘lover’ sounds like something out of an awful romance novel, and ‘partner’ suggests some kind of formal business endeavor-

No matter how you spin it, lying to General Hux is probably the worst idea you have ever heard of, and you have heard your fair share of bad ideas in your lifetime.  Unfortunately, telling the truth is also out of the question, mostly because you have no desire to incriminate yourself.  Both, in a worst-case scenario, mean that you could be relegated to reconditioning, and you don’t exactly relish the thought of that (even if you’re almost sure that General Hux would never see the need for it).

“What did you do?” he asks, his tone dry and flat and mildly exasperated, like a parent speaking to an overly mischievous child.  It also sounds a little like he wants to laugh, there’s a rippling undertone to those four words, but this hint is not reassuring enough for you to just come out and  _ tell _ him.  It’s the principle of the thing, right?  Do rule-breakers have principles?  You’re not sure, but you suspect that this might be a romanticized kind of rule-breaker who has such vaunted things as  _ principles _ .  Either way,  _ you _ have principles, and one of these principles is  _ not incriminating yourself _ when you do happen to knowingly violate regulations.

“I performed to the best of my ability, sir,” you respond promptly, the rote answer of troublemaking Stormtroopers and underperforming officers everywhere even though you fit in neither category.

“I’ve a feeling I should check your rucksack,” he says after a long pause, watching you through narrowed eyes, knowing exactly what your answer means.

“As you please, sir,” you answer, shoving yet more food into your mouth as you brace yourself for the consequences and anticipate the inevitable conversation that will follow.  There’s no helping it.  He knows.  He knows that you know he knows.  You know that he knows that you know he knows.  How many knows can you put in a sentence?  You would find out, but then you would never finish your dinner.

General Hux pushes his chair back and rises with effortless grace, stepping around his desk and crossing the space between your workspaces with long strides.  He doesn’t so much as glance at you while you watch him kneel in front of the rucksack you dumped by the side of your desk, stuffed almost to bursting.  He undoes the fastenings with nimble fingers, loosening straps and unclipping side-release buckles as fast as any Stormtrooper, then folds back the flap and unties the drawstring holding it all shut.  Your bag yawns open immediately, almost spilling its contents onto him and the floor, and he snorts in amusement as he begins sorting through your carefully packed supplies.

It only takes him half a minute to find the night vision scope wrapped in your sleep sack.  He holds it in his gloved palm for a moment, seeming to weigh it as he glances up at you.  You very deliberately take a sip from the cup of tea sitting on your desk, assuming an expression of blank innocence.

“This wasn’t issued,” he says pointedly, tossing it a couple of inches so that it lands in his palm with an incriminating smack.  You stall by taking another sip of tea and wish that General Hux didn’t look so intimidating, even when down on one knee.  How does he  _ do _ that?  Is it the squared shoulders?  Or is it the sardonic arch of his eyebrow?  Is it the firmness of his mouth or the set of his jaw?

“It was not, sir,” you respond carefully, sensing that your time to not answer is quickly running out.

“Where did you get this?” he asks, shaking the scope in his hand once at you for emphasis.

“I’m  _ returning _ it to the quartermaster when I’m done eating, sir,” you correct him, lifting the tray of food in your lap to prove your point.  When you don’t continue, he pulls in a deep breath and lets it go in a long, long exhale as he closes his eyes.  Clearly, you are trying his patience.  You are undecided whether you find this entertaining or worrying, but the answer so far is: both.

“ _ How _ did you get it, Lieutenant?” he amends, his expression going flat and his lips parted to show a hint of teeth as he lifts himself to his feet.  Even from an arm’s length away, he towers over you, and you have to forcibly control the urge to shy away from him.  Instead, you sit up a little straighter, crossing your ankles and adjusting the fork on the tray in your lap, giving him an ingenuous smile.

“I traded a bottle of the syrup I use for my coffee, sir,” you tell him truthfully, your smile never wavering as his face shifts more towards incredulous rather than irritated.

“How many bottles of that do you even have?” he mutters, not looking as if he actually wants an answer as he glances down towards the scope in his hand.  His fingers tighten around it and you see the lens cap on the side closest to you bend as his eyes roll toward the ceiling.

“Well, I had  _ one _ , but now I don’t have  _ any _ except what’s in my flask, sir,” you answer, unable to hide your amusement and just do your best not to gloat a little.  You’re fairly sure that no one has ever seen that look, the one that makes General Hux seem like he wants to believe in  _ some _ kind of deity, but  _ you _ see it on a fairly regular basis.  It’s one of those little things that most people wouldn’t notice or appreciate that you do because it’s indicative of just how deeply entrenched the two of you are.  He  _ forgets _ to control himself sometimes in your presence, as if in some ways you’re an extension of him and not a wholly separate person.  Perhaps in some ways you are.  Perhaps the same is true for him.

“Is that all the quartermaster asked for?” he asks, sounding faintly puzzled- no, skeptical, because the question is paired with narrowed eyes and a stiff frown leveled at you.

“No, sir, but it’s all he  _ got _ .”  You huff peevishly, wrinkling your nose as you recall the encounter.  You still don’t fail to notice the subtle hum of tension as it begins to fill the room, the way General Hux shifts his weight slightly and goes rigid beneath the sharp seaming of his uniform.

“What else did he ask for?” he asks, voice tight and already tending toward displeasure.  You  _ could _ omit half the truth, but you do have a streak of pettiness in you that likes to show it’s face occasionally.  Today, you feel like letting that pettiness show.  The fact that it’s also likely to manipulate General Hux into feeling possessive and stroke your own ego twice over also motivates you toward this course of action, and you embrace it wholeheartedly.

“A blowjob and a word in your ear about a promotion, sir,” you tell him, following it up with a nearly theatrical, but entirely sincere, sigh of indignation.  Ironically, General Hux pulls in a sharp breath between his teeth, now clenched together.

“You must be joking.”  The words are clipped and stained pitch-dark, the tone acidic and biting, but with a definitive snarl shimmering in the undertow, and all of it is balm for your soul.  You sink into the sound of his protective fury and draw it around your shoulders like a blanket, let satisfaction seep through your body and soften your spine.

“That’s exactly what I told him, sir,” you murmur in answer, meeting his stare and holding it.  A smile, small, but still a smile, curves your parted lips as you look up at him with messily entwined adoration and gratitude.  His anger passes, transforms into surprise before it turns thoughtful, and then he nods gravely.  He sets the night scope on the corner of your desk as he turns and makes his way back to his own desk, settling into his chair.  He rests his elbow on the arm, settles his chin on his thumb, the pad of his index finger pressed against his lips as he looks at you, head tilted.

“So you traded a bottle of syrup for a night scope to use during the exercise,” he says from behind his finger as you reach out to take the scope from the corner of your desk.  You wrap your hand around the still warm casing, thumb pressing against the lens cap that bent under his grip to make sure that it won’t be coming off and leaving the lens vulnerable.

“Yes, sir.”  You stash the scope in your hip pocket for safekeeping until you can take it back to the quartermaster.  You could just toss it on top of the contents of your bag, but you’re afraid it might fall onto the floor if you do considering General Hux didn’t repack or close your rucksack.

“Did it ever cross your mind that you might not always have access to this kind of equipment in a combat situation?” he continues, one eyebrow arching upward as he waits for you to answer.

“Yes, sir,” you repeat, and his eyes narrow in displeasure.

“And?” he prompts irritably, both his eyebrows lifting this time as he waits for you to explain yourself.

“I thought it would be a shame if I didn’t utilize my available resources the way I would in a combat situation, sir,” you tell him, and the sentence smacks of insubordination, especially when paired with your impish grin.  The only thing saving you from reconditioning now is General Hux’s assurance that so long as he remains loyal to the First Order, then so will you.  Well, that and the fact that the two of you are secure in his office behind a closed door and there’s no one to hear you be such a thorn in his side for the sheer fun of it.  He stares at you, his hand dropping from his face to his desk as his head tilts downward to convey his mild disapproval.  You know what real disapproval looks like, and this is definitely not it.  Real disapproval is a frown carved from stone paired with glacial eyes and the vague sense that a serious snowstorm is about to hit.

“Why the syrup?” he asks, apparently having decided to ignore the quartermaster’s first request for the time being.  You wonder if he thinks you made that part up (you didn’t!), but then again it might save the quartermaster an unpleasant time if you allow the subject to be glossed over.  As much as the quartermaster probably deserves to end up being sent to reconditioning, be demoted, or possibly have a very personal and unpleasant audience with General Hux, you simply don’t have the energy to pursue those possibilities at the moment.

“He thought the flask in my pocket was for alcohol, but he liked the taste of the syrup anyway, sir,” you tell him, and understanding lightens his eyes.  It’s a commonly made mistake, half of Starkiller thinks you’re an alcoholic because of the flask, but generally no one believes you when you say that it’s not alcohol unless they smell it.  Some people, like General Hux, insist on tasting it.  Thankfully, General Hux had had the good sense to sip at your flask rather than take a swig.  One less intelligent colonel had done the latter and then spat the whole mouthful at an unfortunate ‘Trooper.

“So you bribed him with syrup,” he says, and it’s a very calm statement, the undertone of amusement leaking back into the conversation.

“I  _ paid _ him with syrup for the temporary use of an item and the promise of it’s return in good condition,” you correct, bristling in your own defense and giving your superior officer a look of irritation.  It was not  _ bribing _ , it was  _ bartering _ , an exchange of goods and services, and you’re fairly certain that General Hux chose that word just to needle you.

“Well, it does explain why your scores were so high,” he says with a shrug of reluctance, not wanting to encourage your cheating while being unable to say that he wouldn’t have done the same, given the opportunity.  Although, he might not have seeing as General Hux does hold, and maintain, sniper scores in  _ all _ shooting exercises involving a blaster rifle  _ and _ expert scores with his personal sidearm.

“But not  _ that _ much higher than my training scores, sir,” you point out, proud of yourself for remembering not to nail Sniper scores out of the blue and in the dead of night.  You were close enough to Sharpshooter during your last nighttime marksmanship exercise that it’s not unthinkable for you to have achieved Sharpshooter.  Still, that Captain Phasma and General Hux feel the need to comment means that maybe you could have allowed yourself one or two headshots less for the sake of believability.

“You did keep it plausible rather than making yourself preposterously good,” he tells you thoughtfully, his expression suggesting that he’s considering whether or not to commend you for this attention to detail.

“Your compliment is appreciated, sir,” you reply with relative formality.  Despite the fact that you actually mean that, you say it with the prim tone of someone who’s just obeying the social hierarchies and doesn’t otherwise really care.

“You’re overdoing it,” he says with a frown.

“Sir?” you ask, not entirely sure what he’s referring to though you have an idea of what it might be-

“ _ Sir. _ ”  Surprisingly, General Hux does a fair imitation of your voice, or perhaps not so surprisingly considering that’s generally how you refer to him, both on and off duty, which means that the number of times per day he hears you call him ‘sir’ is… some astromonical number you don’t want to think about.  Either way, you doubt that your face looks quite as guileless as his does for that fraction of a second he holds onto the expression.

“I’m sorry, sir,” you apologize tartly, not meaning a word of it as you snatch up the roll you grabbed on a whim and tear a piece off to toss nonchalantly into your mouth.

“What have I ever done to deserve such disrespect from you?” he asks, his eyes rolling up toward the ceiling again and remaining there this time.

“With all due respect, sir, I’m giving you the respect your rank is due, sir.” 

“Now you’re just mocking me,” he mutters, lifting a hand to scrub at his face in his frustration, his thumb dragging over his sideburns down to his jaw.

“I would never mock you, sir,” you answer, your voice grave and deeply serious and completely at odds with your smug smile.

“Smart-arse,” he accuses, his eyes dropping from the ceiling to meet yours and emphasize his point.

“As you say, sir,” you respond, setting your roll down and winking in slightly exaggerated fashion.

“ _ Eat _ .”

“As you wish,  _ sir _ ,” you answer, even daring to lift your eyebrows significantly before forking another slice of tuber-in-sauce into your mouth.  General Hux huffs in exasperation, shaking his head and muttering something under his breath.  He glances at you one more time, his annoyance gaining an element of fondness, as if he finds your cheekiness endearing, and you smirk into your dinner, secure in your triumph.

A week later, you find a sealed bottle of syrup tucked into your desk drawer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy endings all 'round: the quartermaster is happily forgotten for the night, you get all of General Hux's attention after you've had a shower, and General Hux gives Reader his _full attention_. Take that as you will. ~~My mind immediately goes to kink, but that's not everyone's cup of tea.~~
> 
> Was it as _sass-tastic_ as I promised it would be? I hope it was, because I had a lot of fun writing this chapter up. Also made me a little sad though because next chapter is the final chapter for Crash Course.
> 
> But! Crash Course is now part of a series, and the companion pieces I've been talking about/working on/dreaming about will be added to the series, so that'll probably be the place to watch for new stuff. For the time being, the plan is to post the final chapter of Crash Course, take a week off from posting, then post the Hux Snippets. After Hux Snippets, it's a tossup whether we'll be seeing the AU stuff or the first time Reader and Hux do the do.
> 
> Kudos and comments always appreciated, but comments especially are my lifeblood. Copy-paste your favorite line, chat about a part that made you laugh, or just talk about Hux because I live for all these things.


	10. In Which General Hux Emerges Victorious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which you attend a party, posing as General Hux's wife.

A set of double doors stands open to allow access to the empty balcony, the golden light of the banquet rooms mingling with the silver light of the double moons hovering in the sky.  Beautiful and deserted as it is, the pale tiles of the balcony are not your destination.  Instead, you duck behind the heavy curtain draped in front of one door, gathering the skirt of your dress in your fingers to pull the hem close as you lean the back of your head against the cool plaster of the wall.  It’s not a good place to hide, just the closest and most immediately available after excusing yourself from one of the little semi-circles of officials and dignitaries you’ve been conversing with.

They’ve called you “young” all evening, but what they mean is “vulnerable”, “naïve”, and “inexperienced”.  You don’t correct the impression even though it irks you because it plays in your favor if they continue to underestimate you.  Their questions are careful and barbed, and you’re faring well enough answering them, but the shy smiles and stumbling over your words is entirely genuine.  They don’t quite believe that you don’t know more than you’re saying, but they also don’t quite believe that you know anything worthwhile anyway.  They’re just sounding your depths and wondering why the obviously brilliant General Hux married a vapid woman a decade his junior.

You bite your lip, sinking your teeth into it without any thought for the pigmented paint there, reminding yourself to breathe deep and exhale long.  There’s tension in your neck running down along your spine, extending long tentacles across your shoulders and around your ribs.  Muscles ache as if you’ve pushed yourself too hard during a day-long training, and you roll out your shoulders as much as you can with your hands still fisted in the soft fabric of your dress.  You grimace at the pain, noting it and trying to let it go and finding yourself unable to.  Anxiety flushes your jaw and neck and chest with heat, sweat prickling at your hairline, and you abruptly let go of your dress, afraid that it might be visibly damp where you’ve been gripping it.  You brush at the cloth, squinting as you try to tell whether or not there are wrinkles in it-

Light blazes into the shadowed space as the curtain is pushed aside, and your head jerks up reflexively, your eyes gone wide with panic.  General Hux’s mouth is ever so slightly turned down as he lets the curtain go and crowds you, nudging the hem of your skirt back with the toe of his boot from where it’s slipped under the edge of the curtain.  You flatten yourself against the wall, and he takes another half-step into you, entirely too close for comfort.  You try to rationalize it, the logical part of your head pointing out that he’s gathered that you’re hiding, is trying to conceal himself behind the curtain too.  The rest of your head is a rush of white noise as you try to find something to say, preferably something charming and just a little insolent-

“What’s wrong?” he asks quietly, barely audible above the music drifting through the air, beating you to the punch.  You open your mouth, close it, and then look away to study the back of the drapery.  It’s a thick fabric that flows like water in spite of its weight.  You brush the backs of your fingers against the velvet softness, trying to anchor yourself with the tactile sensation, and then he says your name.  It’s soft, gentle, and it somehow doesn’t sound  _ real _ .  The sudden application of words to what’s bothering you almost makes you miss it when he continues.  “Tell me what it is.”

“It doesn’t-  It’s not real,” you answer, biting your lip and managing to look in his direction though your gaze stays at the level of his chest.  The medals there are pinned in perfectly even rows, but still you lift a hand to fiddle with one, petting and smoothing the black ribbon with its white and red stripes with your index finger.   The mirror-finished First Order insignia with superimposed crosshairs dangling at the end sways under your touch, reflecting your hurt expression for a moment before it shifts.  Something like disappointment settles in your chest and then sinks into your stomach, and your vision blurs and swims.  You’re not sure why you suddenly want to cry or why you feel so ashamed, but you suppress both as best you can, pressing your lips together and pulling in a deep breath.  You hold it until it burns, until you have to let it go and inhale again-

“What isn’t real?” he demands, his voice low and sharp, cutting.  You flinch away from it, realize your fingertip is still resting against the ribbon on his chest, withdraw your hand and let it drop to your side.  Your eyes fall to his belt buckle, then slide away to the ridge of plaster on the wall opposite the curtain, swallowing as you try to summon the courage for honesty as much as find words that don’t overexpose you.  It wouldn’t be the first time that you said something too revealing, that left you feeling more naked in front of him than actual nudity ever has.  He has a way of reading past the words you say, as if he can scroll through your emotions the same way he can scroll through information on a datapad, peruse them at his leisure.

“You,” you manage to say, then have to swallow to try and hold onto your nerve, “This isn’t-  it’s not you.  You’re not… like this.”  It’s a nebulous statement at best, too vague to really be understood unless someone already knows why you’ve said it.  General Hux, naturally, knows exactly why you’ve said it and, consequently, exactly what it refers to.  It was  _ his _ idea for you to pose as his wife, after all, and you’re still not sure if it was an order or if you agreed to it.  In retrospect it almost seems like both somehow, but no matter how you spin it, you didn’t think General Hux would  _ dote _ on you the way he has this evening.

You had stuck close to him through the pre-dinner social hour, afraid to drift too far from him and make a mistake that he couldn’t immediately rectify, even more terrified of making a mistake he couldn’t smooth over.  Etiquette was covered in the First Order Officer’s manual, but there was no chapter on the half-truths of pretending to be the wife of your  _ inamorato _ and commanding officer.  There was also no chapter on what to do when said superior uncharacteristically showered you with attention, with benevolent smiles and a gentle hand in the small of your back, with adoration and a warm arm around your shoulders.

“ _ I had no idea you were married, General Hux _ ,” had been a frequent comment until well through dinner.

“ _ Success leaves a man with enemies _ ,” had been General Hux’s usual response, often accompanied by a sure, steady brush of the backs of his fingers against some part of your anatomy.  Your shoulder, your arm, your waist, and your hip were all fair game.  In spite of the fact that you learned to expect it after the first couple of times, those soft touches still surprised you.  The way he glanced at you, like you might disappear if he took his eyes off you too long, left you unsettled.  He’d never looked at you like that, had always seemed to treat it like fact that you would be at his side, come hell or high water.  It said something about his confidence and trust in you, and you had never realized how much you depended on his high regard until it seemed like you no longer had it.

Act or not, it had felt real enough to make you question everything between the two of you.

“Aren’t I?” he asks, voice full of gravel as he interrupts your rapidly spiraling thought process “This feels real to me.”  Abruptly, his gloved hands are under your jaw, cradling your face in his hot, leather-covered palms as he lifts your head to look him in the face.  His eyes are blazing, more blue than green here in the shadows, his mouth severe as your breath catches and stops.

“So does this,” he continues, one of his hands dropping to skim past your elbow and slide around your waist.  His hand splays low on your back, pulling your pelvis forward as he takes another half-step forward and into you.  Caught between his body, the wall, and your own enthralling surprise, you fall back on instinctive reaction, shifting your body with respect to the way he positions himself.  The two of you move in sync with the ease of practice, slotting together like a pair of puzzle pieces, with all the entailing  _ rightness _ of it.

“And this,” he rumbles directly against your mouth, letting his lips just touch yours for a long moment before he settles against you and you let your eyes close.  The kiss is firm, just this side of hard, controlled and familiar and intoxicating.  It is exactly like a thousand other kisses you have shared, and it’s comforting, grounding, perfect.

“Does it still feel like just a performance?” he murmurs when he pulls away, resting his forehead against yours as you open your eyes again.  He nudges your nose with his own as he adjusts the angle and becomes the only thing you can see, wordlessly demanding your complete attention.

“No, sir,” you respond, your voice not much more than a blissful whisper.

“Almost,” he chides gently, but there’s no heat behind it, only a reminder of what you agreed you should call him for the duration of the function.

“Brendol,” you amend, his name rolling off your tongue in a pleasing, if unfamiliar, way.  It tastes full-bodied and rich, like high-quality coffee, something to be savored, like the way he’s still holding you.  

“Excellent.  Now, come with me.”  The hand at your jaw leaves, the arm around your waist tightens, and then he’s sweeping the curtain aside and pulling you out from behind it.  Your face immediately feels like it’s on fire when you catch more than a few amused looks sent your way as General Hux sweeps you along beside him with his iron grip.  You’re not certain where he’s going, but you know that many people just saw the two of you emerge from a hidden corner and are probably making assumptions about what was happening immediately prior to General Hux’s dramatic re-entry to the party.  You try not to think about it too much, knowing that it fits with the image the two of you have been cultivating through the evening, but that doesn’t make it any less mortifying.

He steers you past the dance floor where several couples are engaging in something complicated, with steps that you can’t interpret and couldn’t reproduce if your life depended on it.  You breathe a sigh of relief that he’s not insisting on dancing, and then feel a vague sense of horror as he heads for a pair of tables along the wall.  One supports a beautiful display of desserts, the other several trays with a number of different kinds of glasses, all filled three-quarters of the way with liquids of every color of the spectrum.  You hope desperately that General Hux isn’t going to attempt to feed you a dessert because you don’t think your dignity could suffer it after the implication that you and your faux-husband have been sneaking into corners to grab at each other like you’re both still at the Academy.

He slows your pace to a stroll, and you glide right past the delicate sweets plated so prettily.  For a moment, you’re tempted to turn back and reach for the slice of cake nestled under a crystalline cage no bigger than your hand, but then General Hux reaches out and plucks a tall, slim glass filled with a pale, bubbling liquid from a tray on the other table.

“Drink this,” General Hux says, handing the flute to you in the most matter-of-fact way, as if he's handing you a datapad, and you take the glass automatically before you consciously register doing so.

“What?  No, I can’t-” you protest immediately, almost slipping and calling him ‘sir’ and stopping as you catch yourself.  You spare a bewildered glance at the flute in your hand which seems to have a quality of surrealism, as if it has simply appeared where before it was not.

“Relax, sweetheart.  Have a glass.  Enjoy yourself a little.”

“Brendol-” you begin, then pause, attempting to find the words to tell him all the reasons why you can't risk being tipsy, why it's too dangerous for you to relax, the way you might give the both of you away if you say the wrong thing.  You look down at the alcohol for a moment, considering it just for a second because you’d like to drink it, and one glass shouldn’t be enough to compromise you, but-

“Give me an excuse to carry you back to our suite,” he purrs directly in your ear, a growl rolling under his murmur like subtle, distant thunder that makes your heart skip and race, your breath hitch and stutter.  The hand on your waist slips down, curls tight and possessive over your hip bone.  You’re suddenly extremely conscious of your shoulder against his chest, your elbow pressed against his belt, but above all you feel his exhale, hot against your neck.  You feel as if you’ve been spinning relentless pirouettes across the dance floor for too long, find yourself leaning helplessly against General Hux, the alcohol in the glass between your fingers trembling even with his hand warm under your own, minimizing the visibility of the tremors.

“Drink,” he urges you in a whisper, his lips brushing against the outer curve of your ear as he issues his command.  You obey without really being aware of doing so, lifting the flute to your lips and sipping from it.  The carbonated alcohol sparkles over your tongue, the sweetness almost surprising you as you swallow without hesitation.  You want so badly to see the look on his face, the depth of intensity in the hot burn of his eyes and the sensual curve of his lips, but you’re afraid of your own reaction.  You distract yourself with another sip from the glass, trying to resist the temptation to glance up at him.  Your mouth goes dry when you finally give in and see the way he’s looking at you.

He looks  _ ravenous _ .  Predatory, as if he wants to eat you alive, consume you whole with your heart still beating, pulse still fluttering in your veins.  His jaw is set with intent and promises, his shoulders all coiled tension in their subtle curve, half protective and half intimidating.  You feel sheltered from the rest of the room as he almost looms over you, eager to devour you where you stand and holding back only for the sake of propriety.  Affection is acceptable, especially for a man who seems as infatuated as General Hux has acted tonight, but there are limits to what's allowed in a public setting.  The implication of wanting to carry you away to a private setting-

_ That's real _ , you think as the vertigo returns and leaves you turning into him and gripping his forearm through the sleeve of his tunic.  The intensity of his wanting you, of all that natural fervor bent toward a single goal, reassures you that this is not acting.  You look up at him, an ache shivering down through your chest to settle low between your hips.

“You’ll need to at least finish the glass,” he mutters impatiently, as if he doesn’t want to wait, but has already decided that it’s necessary.

“You should take it from me before then,” you tell him before you take another sip.  Your solution is, you think, a very neat one as such things go.  You can’t even bring yourself to care whether or not anyone thinks you’re a lightweight, so long as it gets you and General Hux out of this room and headed back up to your suite, you can live with it.

“You haven’t had nearly enough to seem tipsy after that meal,” he remarks, holding your stare as the two of you stand so close that you forget for a moment that there are other people in the room.  You forget long enough to wonder what it would be like to push him up against the wall, how long he would let you hold him there with your lips pressed against his throat, breathing in the warm smell of him.

“You don’t know that,” you answer breathlessly, unable to look away from him even as you try to remind yourself that you shouldn’t look so wrapped up in him, that he shouldn’t look so wrapped up in you.  Why is he allowing this?  On the other hand, why shouldn’t he?  The point was to ward off any potential marriages, and what could do that better than two people too much in love to see anyone else?

“You’re not flushed because you’re drunk, love.”

“Can’t we just leave?” you mumble, immediately regretting saying it because it sounds childish, whiny.  Your eyes drop to the glass in your hand and you grimace at it before drinking from it again.  There’s perhaps a quarter of the glass left, maybe three mouthfuls or so.

“Then give me an excuse,” General Hux responds, his brief laugh slightly strained as he nudges you just a little closer to him than is strictly appropriate.  

“Your excuse is that I want to leave,” you say decisively, lifting your chin determinedly and trying for an imitation of the tone he uses when he refuses to tolerate even a hint of hesitation.  You narrow your eyes and stare him down, have the satisfaction of seeing his eyes widen a fraction.

“You’re very good at that,” he comments, examining your face with something more thoughtful than carnal in the purse of his lips, “Are you trying to emulate me?”

“ _ Brendol _ .”  You say his name with such severity that he snorts, and exasperation prompts you to throw back the rest of the drink as a way of expressing your frustration.

“There we are,” he observes, his mouth pulling into a victorious smirk as he takes the empty glass from you and puts it down on the table while you gape at him.

“What do you-  You manipulative-” you sputter, and then squeak when he moves in one graceful, continuous gesture and sweeps you off your feet and into his arms.  You’ve no sooner been settled against his chest before he’s heading for the door.

You’ve never felt a more bizarre mix of emotions in your life.  First off, you’re  _ mortified _ .  As if it’s not enough that the whole room thinks the two of you have been groping each other in darkened corners, now he’s carrying you out of the room and pretending you’re tipsy.  Your dignity cannot stand this, and because there’s no further loss, you indulge yourself by hiding your face in your hands and stringing together something blasphemous under your breath.

Which leads you to your second emotion, which is some kind of  _ frisson _ that you have no idea how to deal with.  You haven’t felt so outrageously feminine since before you went to the Academy.  This is the stuff of terrible romance novels, the hero sweeping the heroine off her feet and carrying her away to have his way with her at long last.  Nevermind that you’ve been sleeping with General Hux for nearly a year now, you still feel like this is some kind of…  _ culmination _ of the relationship.

_ Irritation _ is the third emotion, because you are  _ not _ drunk and  _ certainly not _ some helpless damsel in distress, and you do not appreciate being carried around as if you’re both.  You can run and fight and kill and you have done all three in General Hux’s service, but here he is, making excuses for the both of you and maneuvering you out the door in such a way that you don’t so much as bump a toe against the doorframe.  He handles you with a confidence that grates on your self-sufficiency and a delicacy that chafes your self-image.

He doesn’t put you down even when you reach the elevator and the door slides shut, locking you away for a moment from the rest of the world, and all you can manage is an acerbic mutter.  “Your arms aren’t tired,  _ sir _ ?”

“Of course not,  _ wife _ ,” he counters just as keenly, though with decidedly more amusement than you as he looks down at your face with a wicked little grin that cause your heart to flutter unnecessarily.  

“You’re insufferable,” you inform him even as you reach up to loop your arms over his shoulders, sliding the fingers of one hand into the hair at the back of his neck.

“And you’d still follow me to hell and back, wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah, I would.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We did it, we climbed this whole mountain! Honestly, finishing this chapter was such a struggle because I didn't want this to end, but all things must end, or else we'd never get to see anything new, you know?
> 
> Some other things that happened at this party besides General Hux romancing you: people wanting to know all about your home planet (a single continent with an inland desert and urban coastline) and what instrument you play (piano, which I was going to call holo-keys).
> 
> And that's about it! Be on the lookout for companion piece additions to this series. I've got stuff lined up, and once some of that's underway, I might be able to consider a sequel to Crash Course!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the ride, and as always, I love your kudo and live for your comments. Copy-paste your favorite bit or just tell me how much you're swooning over Hux!


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